Intelligent Design - the Creationists' Latest Wheeze

[jporter]

On Sep 30, 2005, at 1:43 PM, Karen Hudes wrote:

> Evolution makes perfect sense. It is the recurring process of tension 
> and
> resolution (or movement toward resolution of tension between organisms 
> and
> the limitations/obstacles of their environment)

Yes, but the devil is in the details, which most popularized
versions of Darwinism overlook, even if they reference more
nuanced versions.

Just because Intelligent Design is an example of "Scurvhamism"
that doesn't automatically mean that popularized versions of
Darwinism are any more entitled to be enshrined as correct.
Yet the zeal of the anti-ID crowd rivals that of the evangelicals.

If you "believe" in evolution, than you must still explain religion
in it's many forms, and any other form of culture, including
science. Furthermore, you must assume that consciousness
preceded religion, or, you are left with the possibility that religion
caused, or helped to cause, the further evolution of consciousness.

Besides arguments over the origin of life, there is the argument
over "knowing", i.e., when did religion, belief, faith, etc. originate
with respect to consciousness? Was there ever a time when
consciousness was purely secular?

And quite apart from whether or not God exists, there exists the
possibility that believing- and those parts of the brain involved
in belief- may have played a causative role in the further evo-
lution of the mental apparatus.

  Did faith gave rise to reason, or reason to faith? From a physical,
biological point of view it's difficult to say. Both seem pretty much
rooted in determinism, which is on real shakey ground since the
emergence of quantum mechanics. Pragmatism may offer a way
out, but we still have to agree on what's valuable, not to mention
pleasurable.


jody