jeffq
18th January 2006, 04:27 AM
I imagine this topic has been discussed before, so pardon me if I'm rehashing existing threads, but I find it rather ironic to see that "intelligent design" is busily undergoing memetic evolution as its anti-evolution proponents work hard to incorporate it into public education. Like a plague of intellectual amoebae in the toxic environment of scientific knowledge, the initially primitive arguments, simply spouting the idea that irreducible complexity is "proof" of a Christian God, have been failing their memetic (specifically, legal) fitness tests. The survivors of the early rounds were the conceptual organisms that had concealed their religious origin in a philosophical membrane.
Now those second-generation ID creatures, using the camouflage of philosophy, are falling to the evolving (but still obvious) counterarguments. According to "Calif. School Scraps 'Intelligent Design'" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060118/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate;_ylt=Am7j9zGGmHSf8rZYa_Kq15Gs0NUE ;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-), parents in the El Tejon school system simply pointed out that the supposed "philosophy" course was packed full of Biblical teachings, rather than providing a truly philosophical approach to the legitimate question of origins.
I expect that, as this new production of ID antibodies propagates throughout the educational system, the survivors of this round will be those imaginative organisms that adhere more closely to true philosophy without losing their reproductive need to push theism. As with the biological arms race, it will require the immune system of science to constantly develop new antibodies to smother this malignant disease of irrationality. But all the while, we can amuse ourselves by pointing out that the very effort of producing a credible anti-evolution argument itself confirms the generalized concept of evolution.
Now those second-generation ID creatures, using the camouflage of philosophy, are falling to the evolving (but still obvious) counterarguments. According to "Calif. School Scraps 'Intelligent Design'" (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060118/ap_on_re_us/evolution_debate;_ylt=Am7j9zGGmHSf8rZYa_Kq15Gs0NUE ;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MzV0MTdmBHNlYwM3NTM-), parents in the El Tejon school system simply pointed out that the supposed "philosophy" course was packed full of Biblical teachings, rather than providing a truly philosophical approach to the legitimate question of origins.
I expect that, as this new production of ID antibodies propagates throughout the educational system, the survivors of this round will be those imaginative organisms that adhere more closely to true philosophy without losing their reproductive need to push theism. As with the biological arms race, it will require the immune system of science to constantly develop new antibodies to smother this malignant disease of irrationality. But all the while, we can amuse ourselves by pointing out that the very effort of producing a credible anti-evolution argument itself confirms the generalized concept of evolution.