Darwin's Black Box - Michael J. Behe and Intelligent Design

You do realize that your response is, for lack of a better term, emotionless or 'dead' in a certain respect.

I was extremely despondent last night and this morning - I was in a surreal, twilight zone place where tons of people I look up to were telling me 2 + 2 is 5, and always has been 5. That's basically how it felt to me. I was told that something that seemed like a perfectly transparent and logical conclusion to me was complete word salad and garbage. I was very confused and had no idea what was going on, and the stress did end up causing some splitting again in the anger/rejection department, although I tried to keep my head on straight.

Anyway, that lasted until this afternoon.

Does that mean that the significance of the case for ID has not really sunk in, that you don't really care for it, that you really like intellectual discussions, or that you are very identified with being the knowleadgeable biologist? A combination of those or something else? I don't know.

I think it's 1 and 3. Maaaybe 4. I decided to read the sample chapter of Heretic: from Darwin to Design this morning, and I did feel some kind of hope there. I did with Behe as well (like I said awhile back). I wonder if my selection-and-substitution blocked out the feeling as soon as my argument juices started flowing though. 👎

Like I said previously, a lot of this seems to be merely an intellectual exercise to you. There's not much you can do directly about that, other than being aware of it and realizing that there is an whole other part of the experience of life and its meaning that you are not very familiar with. Perhaps as you age and experience more you'll understand more.

I hope so! I'm actually excited about the idea of being able to look at a piece of emotionally charged intellectual writing of mine and being able to see the flaws just as easily as everyone else does. It's funny because I have been able to catch myself sometimes when it's about certain topics (eg, really abstract political science), but this ND thing kind of caught me off guard.

This is what I see: your mind seems completely disconnected. It's as if you are shifting puzzle pieces around in your mind, only they don't exist. Therefore, you completely miss the points we are making and can't follow our reasoning. The result is this: as bizarre as this mirror looks to you (in your own words), as bizarre your responses here look to us. There is a huge disconnect on many levels.
...
And your responses here show how you ended up living in your own mental world, in your own bubble, where you can't follow arguments, can't see reality, and are incapable of distinguishing between truth, your past and present thoughts, and between valid arguments and your "debate society assignments". This is not a good state to be in!!

Thanks luc. Your explanation of Joe's point in the article he linked was actually really helpful. In my initial reading it sounded like he was implying that ND are materialists, but now I see that his point was more that it would be a large stretch to attribute intra-brain EMF signaling to random mutation + natural selection. I hope that's the crux of the matter? It's funny how a slight shift in perspective and understanding can upend so many constructs. It kind of reminds me of a scene from My Cousin Vinnie:

I feel like if every single argument I've gotten into in this thread has been along those lines, I really can't blame people following this thread to remark, "man, this is really sad." It is sad, but a part of me just feels like laughing at myself at this point, especially after Laura's post.

Whitecoast, I've been watching what amounts to a display of your inner landscape and I have to say that I am concerned. I think I already mentioned that what struck me most forcibly was your apparent inability to perceive "the crux of the matter" and there have been a number of mentions of "selection and substitution." These effects appear to play out over and over again and yet I think - feel? hope? - that you are sincere about really wanting to "go somewhere" with your personal development. I'm stymied for how to help you get over this barrier; because barrier it surely is. But I'm not sure it is a fear barrier such as Gurdjieff describes; you know, sitting between two stools.

I went back to Ponerology searching for clues. Here's what I found:

Lobaczewski wrote:
During good times, people progressively lose sight of the need for profound reflection, introspection, knowledge of others, and an understanding of life’s complicated laws. Is it worth pondering the properties of human nature and man’s flawed personality, whether one’s own or someone else’s? Can we understand the creative meaning of suffering we have not undergone ourselves, instead of taking the easy way out and blaming the victim?

You are a product of such "good times" as are so many who were born in the generation after my own. I got a taste of it too being a teenager in the 60s.

L writes:
Perception of the truth about the real environment, especially an understanding of the human personality and its values, ceases to be a virtue during the so-called “happy” times; thoughtful doubters are decried as meddlers who cannot leave well enough alone. This leads to an impoverishment of psychological knowledge, the capacity of differentiating the properties of human nature and personality, and the ability to mold minds creatively. The cult of power thus supplants those mental values so essential for maintaining law and order by peaceful means.

During “good” times, the search for truth becomes uncomfortable because it reveals inconvenient factors. It is better to think about easier and more pleasant things. Unconscious elimination of data which are or appear to be inexpedient gradually turns to habit, then becomes a custom accepted by society at large. Any thought process based on such truncated information cannot possibly give rise to correct conclusions; it further leads to subconscious substitution of inconvenient premises by more convenient ones, thereby approaching the boundaries of phenomena which should be viewed as psychopathological.

Such contented periods, which are often rooted in some injustice to other people or nations, start to strangle the capacity for individual and societal consciousness
; subconscious factors take over a decisive role in life. Such a society, already infected by the hysteroidal state, considers any perception of uncomfortable truth to be a sign of “ill-breeding”. J. G. Herder’s iceberg is drowned in a sea of falsified unconsciousness; only the tip of the iceberg is visible above the waves of life. ... In such times, the capacity for logical and disciplined thought, born of necessity during difficult times, begins to fade. When communities lose the capacity for psychological reason and moral criticism, the processes of the generation of evil are intensified at every social scale, whether individual or macrosocial, until they revert to “bad” times.

We already know that every society contains a certain percentage of people carrying psychological deviations caused by various inherited or acquired factors which produce anomalies in perception, thought, and character. Many such people attempt to impart meaning to their deviant lives by means of social hyperactivity. They create their own myths and ideologies of overcompensation and have the tendency to egotistically insinuate to others their own deviant perceptions and the resulting goals and ideas.

In the European languages, “Austrian talk” has become the common descriptive term for paralogistic discourse. Many people using this term nowadays are unaware of its origin. Within the context of maximum hysterical intensity in Europe at the time, the authentic article represented a typical product of conversive thinking: subconscious selection and substitution of data lead to chronic avoidance of the crux of the matter.

Information selection and substitution: Unconscious psychological processes outstrip conscious reasoning, both in time and in scope, which makes many psychological phenomena possible: including those generally described as conversive, such as subconscious blocking out of conclusions, the selection, and, also, substitution of seemingly uncomfortable premises.

We speak of blocking out conclusions if the inferential process was proper in principle and has almost arrived at a conclusion and final comprehension within the act of internal projection, but becomes stymied by a preceding directive from the subconscious, which considered it inexpedient or disturbing. ...A conclusion thus rejected remains in our subconscious and in a more unconscious way causes the next blocking and selection of this kind. This can be totally harmful, progressively enslaving a person to his own subconscious, and is often accompanied by a feeling of tension and bitterness.

We speak of selection of premises whenever the feedback goes deeper into the resulting reasoning and from its database thus deletes and represses into the subconscious just that piece of information which was responsible for arriving at the uncomfortable conclusion. Our subconscious then permits further logical reasoning, except that the outcome will be erroneous in direct proportion to the actual significance of the repressed data. An ever-greater number of such repressed information is collected in our subconscious memory. Finally, a kind of habit seems to take over: similar material is treated the same way even if reasoning would have reached an outcome quite advantageous to the person.

The most complex process of this type is substitution of premises thus eliminated by other data, ensuring an ostensibly more comfortable conclusion. Our associative ability rapidly elaborates a new item to replace the removed one, but it is one leading to a comfortable conclusion. This operation takes the most time, and it is unlikely to be exclusively subconscious. Such substitutions are often effected collectively, in certain groups of people, through the use of verbal communication. That is why they best qualify for the moralizing epithet “hypocrisy” than either of the above-mentioned processes.

The above examples of conversive phenomena do not exhaust a problem richly illustrated in psychoanalytical works. Our subconscious may carry the roots of human genius within, but its operation is not perfect; sometimes it is reminiscent of a blind computer, especially whenever we allow it to be cluttered with anxiously rejected material. This explains why conscious monitoring, even at the price of courageously accepting disintegrative states, is likewise necessary to our nature, not to mention our individual and social good.
....

Grey-haired Europeans living in the U.S. today are struck by the similarity between these phenomena and the ones dominating Europe at the times of their youth. The emotionalism dominating individual, collective and political life, as well as the subconscious selection and substitution of data in reasoning, are impoverishing the development of a psychological world view and leading to individual and national egotism. The mania for taking offense at the drop of a hat provokes constant retaliation, taking advantage of hyper-irritability and hypo-criticality on the part of others.

America’s psychological recession drags in its wake an impaired socio-professional adaptation of this country’s people, leading to a waste of human talent and an involution of societal structure.
*
Now, the above is the background description of the times and the general problem of the influences you have been subjected to all your life; you were born into it. A fish hatched in a dirty river doesn't know any different; he CAN'T know any different. But a human being is different from a fish; as Stove describes it, humans ARE different.

But now we come to one of the particular problems that this present cycle presents us: drug induced characteropathies. Lobaczewski again:

During the last few decades, medicine has begun using a series of drugs with serious side effects: they attack the nervous system, leaving permanent damage behind. These generally discreet handicaps sometimes give rise to personality changes which are often very harmful socially.

The cytostatic drugs used in treating neoplastic diseases often attack the phylogenetically oldest brain tissue, the primary carrier of our instinctive substratum and basic feelings. Persons treated with such drugs progressively tend to lose their emotional color and their ability to intuit a psychological situation. They retain their intellectual functions but ...

Results similar to the above in the psychological picture may be caused by endogenous toxins or viruses. When, on occasion, the mumps proceeds with a brain reaction, it leaves in its wake a discrete pallor or dullness of feelings and a slight decrease in mental efficiency. Similar phenomena are witnessed after a difficult bout with diphtheria. Finally, polio attacks the brain, more often the higher part of the anterior horns, which was affected by the process. People with leg paresis rarely manifest these effects, but those with paresis of the neck and/or shoulders must count themselves lucky if they do not. In addition to affective pallor, persons manifesting these effects usually evidence an inability to comprehend the crux of a matter and naiveté.

Character anomalies developing as a result of brain-tissue damage behave like insidious ponerogenic factors.... traumatizing our psyches, impoverishing and deforming our thoughts and feelings, and limiting individuals’ and societies’ ability to use common sense and recognize a psychological or moral situation.

Brain tissue is very limited in its regenerative ability. If it is damaged and the change subsequently heals, a process of rehabilitation takes place thanks to which the neighboring healthy tissue takes over the function of the damaged portion. This substitution is never quite perfect; thus some deficits in skill and proper psychological processes can be detected in even cases of very small damage by using the appropriate tests. Specialists are aware of the variegated causes for the origin of such damage, including trauma and infections.

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Now, I've included the part of PP where Lobaczewski discusses brain damage due to drugs of various kinds and pathogens, for a specific reason. I'm aware that you have done some experimentation and I am wondering if this has had something to do with your apparent inability to let go of the false personality, the egoic self-image you have created, which is so clearly on display here. Lobaczewski discusses what to do for people who have this selection and substitution problem, this inability to see or get to the "crux of the matter" as follows:

In any method or technique of analytical psychotherapy, or autonomous psychotherapy, as T. Szasz called it, the guiding operational motivation is exposing to the light of consciousness whatever material has been suppressed by means of subconscious selection of data, or given up in the face of intellectual problems. This is accompanied by a disillusionment of substitutions and rationalizations, whose creation is usually in proportion to the amount of repressed material.

In many cases, it turns out that the material fearfully eliminated from the field of consciousness, and frequently substituted by ostensibly more comfortable associations, would never have had such dangerous results if we had initially mustered the courage to perceive it consciously. We would then have been in the position to find an independent and often creative way out of the situation.

In some cases, however, especially when dealing with phenomena which are hard to understand within the categories of our natural world view, leading the patient out of his problems demands furnishing him crucial objective data, usually from the areas of biology, psychology, and psychopathology, and indicating specific dependencies which he was unable to comprehend before.

***


So, as I said, I AM concerned about this situation and I hope you can take all of the above onboard.

I can't thank you enough for this. This entire citation of Ponerology is pretty bang on. I actually can't describe the sense of relief I got after reading this. It was like all confusion and fog and miasma just cleared up after daybreak. The truth of the matter is that I can't think the way that I think, and that I have some nuts-and-bolts malfunction in my brain that makes me stupid. The explanation is so simple I have to just laugh at how it went over my head so many times, even after people said the exact same thing to me so many times. It IS alarming.

Maybe due to accepting bad data (criminal thinking?), or eliminating good data to avoid some uncomfortable truth, my brain crossed a wire somewhere, leading to converse reasoning and conclusions about things that aren't even related to the source of the defect. Maybe it's due to drug or chemical exposures I've had. (These bad mental habits of mine were part of my makeup long before I consumed anything psychoactive btw - just ask my poor parents who knew me as a teenager). Maybe it's due to infections. I have an autistic spectrum disorder, which are often caused by gut health complications, heavy metals, etc. So that could be a source.

Whatever the case, the bottom line is, there's something off in my thinking abilities that seems to make some wrong things that seem bizarre and strange to others seem totally true and reasonable to me. And it honestly feels good to know that, and know that the problem is squarely on MY end. It was either that or everyone else here was a lunatic, and I couldn't be happier it's the former and not the latter. The universe has once again assumed a recognizable order. "One hunert percent" I have an issue with my thinking. It feels good to admit to myself that I am stupid.

I've always kind of had an odd trigger around feeling like I'm not being heard or understood. Like I have a very hard time connecting with others on a mental level. I've always felt like I had trouble being able to speak my mind fully, and feel totally heard and seen. Even here, where people share and open up all the time, there were some situations where my own thoughts would differ from the popular view, and due to my anxiety about not being heard I would self-censor kind of, even after I did make a point about thinking differently about something. I feel like it kind of came to a head here, maybe due to some of the progress (at least I feel I've) made about rejection anxiety in the last year or so.

I think one of the reasons that this new realization is a big relief for me is that, after all this, I actually WAS understood completely. I was just wrong, and unable to see myself because of have a brain defect somewhere that makes me stupid. Even if (at least some) people can't see where exactly my thinking went sideways because of how convoluted some of it is, it's like the squirrel question brought up. You don't really need to know the details and purpose of the intelligent design behind a squirrel to know that it was NOT designed by random events in a material universe. So even if the understanding is limited to at least understanding that I AM wrong, that is enough good enough for some kind of need I have. I think it may be related to trauma of some kind, not that the source really matters right now.

Yeah, this is really weird. Weird that you aren't seeing what most everyone else is. Weird that you're responses have to be taken apart just to try and make sense of where it is exactly you're coming from.

I know right?!?! It's really strange. At least I think I have a sensible answer now, which I think I've managed to internalize moreso than before, after hearing it about a dozen different ways by people here. Then again, what do I know?

It is interesting how people have talked about the material in this thread bringing a sort of relief. I think one possibility for this feeling is that there is this common undoing of some deeply programmed material-based restrictions in our concept of ourselves and the world. But I think it's not just that. I think it's also about moving from an intellectual conception of Mind toward something like a reality based recognition of the Divine Mind.
Beautifully said, Renaissance. A real, renaissance, eh?

:hug2: This has been a great thread so far. Sorry if I'm coming across as a bit manic now, but really, this is a huge, HUGE relief.
 
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I've always kind of had an odd trigger around feeling like I'm not being heard or understood. Like I have a very hard time connecting with others on a mental level. I've always felt like I had trouble being able to speak my mind fully, and feel totally heard and seen. Even here, where people share and open up all the time, there were some situations where my own thoughts would differ from the popular view, and due to my anxiety about not being heard I would self-censor kind of, even after I did make a point about thinking differently about something. I feel like it kind of came to a head here, maybe due to some of the progress (at least I feel I've) made about rejection anxiety in the last year or so.

I think one of the reasons that this new realization is a big relief for me is that, after all this, I actually WAS understood completely. I was just wrong, and unable to see myself because of have a brain defect somewhere that makes me stupid.

I think this is a valuable insight. The normal course of our emotions and reasoning is to trust them completely just because we experience them. This is reinforced by the idea that 'validation' of our emotions and thoughts is a necessary aspect of healing, communication, or whatever. There may be uses for validation in specific therapeutic settings, but when it's applied to general life, it's like, well, what about when such things are not based in reality or truth? I've experienced this in a mirror at one point and as obvious as it might seem to the outside observer, it was a revelation to viscerally understand that just because I feel or think something to be true, it doesn't mean it is actually true. I suppose this calls for a break from the attachment to our false self and a willingness to see ourselves as others see us and reality as it is to break through this barrier - and it really is a relief to do so.
 
Thanks luc. Your explanation of Joe's point in the article he linked was actually really helpful. In my initial reading it sounded like he was implying that ND are materialists, but now I see that his point was more that it would be a large stretch to attribute intra-brain EMF signaling to random mutation + natural selection. I hope that's the crux of the matter? It's funny how a slight shift in perspective and understanding can upend so many constructs.

Yes! I think this is actually very insightful. Practicing these slight shifts in perspective is, I think, the right way to interact with reality and with "knowledge input". You can practice empathy with the author that way, and extract valuable insights you would otherwise have missed. Often, looking at something from one perspective, it seems entirely wrong, but slightly shifting the angle makes it enlightening.

Of course, we shouldn't buy obviously pathological material. But ironically, practicing this sort of "perspective shifting", as you called it, actually makes us more confident overtime in our assessment - we learn how to recognize "truth flavor" and whether certain thoughts and concepts are aligned with reality, our own experience and the real world. It will always be possible of course that we still go off-track, fall for some pathological concept or miss the point, and none of us will have the "whole banana" in this life. But it's the attempt that counts I think, it's the never-ending quest that is of value in and of itself, painful as it can be. And we have the invaluable gift of this group to correct us and help us stay on track. Onwards and upwards!
🛴
 
Having followed this thread very carefully I felt for the most part stripped mentally and physically....I felt exhausted but carried on. Most of the time I felt as if I was in freefall. As I have mentioned in another thread I feel as if I'm hanging on to shirt tails just to keep up. I'm so glad I hung on as I have learned so much about myself (and I don't like all that I see)but I am starting to feel exhilarated in spotting the flaws. Thank you all for your wisdom and I truly hope I'm not creating noise in an amazing topic.
 
Came across this in an article on recovery but I think it can go nicely here. What we believe has powerful consequences and changing those beliefs can be the most challenging thing we ever do.

“Things can be treated. You can get well. It is possible to get better if you’re prepared to challenge your beliefs, seek help and do things differently.
Healing isn’t always easy, but even the most grueling journey gets you to a better place than continuing to tread the rocky paths of self-destruction with torn shoes and bleeding feet.
And even if you come off track for a bit, there is always an exit. Just don’t be too blind to see it by clinging to your old beliefs.”
 
I was just casually glancing through a magazine in the coffee room at work, and what caught my attention was an article talking about nanobiotechnology. I did a quick search on the internet, and there seems to be very fast advances going on in this field right now. They talk about stuff like 'medical nanorobotics', which is eerily similar to the stuff Behe and others have talked about. There's a lot to read and research regarding this field, so I've just scratched the surface, but if our technology right now is already at this point, the 'intelligent design' of cell structures and e.g. bacterial flagellum should be a piece of cake in, lets say 10 000 years. Just have a look at this 'medical nanorobot' in the image – remind you of something?

Image236.jpg
Just by chance (synchronicity strikes again) I happened to catch the movie I, Robot today (seen it before) and couldn't help but notice the nanite injector depicted in the film:
23631698_1m.jpg



(20th Century Fox, 2004) This prop nanite Injector was custom-made by the production for use by Will Smith as "Del Spooner". Made of rubber and resin with a clear compartment that is filled with liquid, this is the stunt version seen near the end of the film when Sonny throws the injector to Del to inject the nanites into "VIKI" the computer.
Thought the lower half rather looked like the medical nanorobot image previously posted; I believe a smaller, more compact version was used in the scene depicting Sonny's termination. Interesting that the movie is from 2004 and is based on stories from a book dating to 1950 - so science fiction has become science fact in regards to nanorobots.

Of course, the movie deals w/ the robot Sonny questioning his evolution/consciousness/purpose. The threat posed by AI is also paramount particularly by the technophobic character played by Will Smith.
 
Here's another little excerpt from Douglas Axe's book "Undeniable". He uses several of these kinds of analogies throughout the book and I think they are very useful mental exercises to grasp the inherent problems with the 'accidental' theory of evolution. His depiction of pinned microchips under glass is a hilarious image!

Suppose all documented knowledge about computers vanished - everything from websites to textbooks to videos. A moment ago, humans had a deep understanding of computers, but now we find ourselves in a state of ignorance, marveling at the these complex machines and wondering how they work.

As more and more technically minded people start examining these mysterious electronic devices, two schools of thought begin to emerge. The 'old school' adopts the view that computers happened by accident, through a happy but unintended convergence of circumstances, whereas the 'new school' appeals to the universal design intuition, arguing that because computers show all the hallmarks of inventions, they must have been invented. Students of both schools initially spend their time observing what computers do before moving toward experimentation, where they try to understand how the various parts enable them to do what they do.

This is where we begin to see the different schools leading their students in two very different directions. Students in an 'old school' computer science lab find themselves surrounded by dusty displays of half-dissected computers with faded labels naming the major parts. The place of honor at the front of the room is given to a most impressive display: a collection of microchips arranged according to the number of legs they have, each carefully impaled with a pin and identified by a handwritten Latin name. Working in pairs, the young computer scientists pry little pieces off boards taken from dead computers, carefully sketching them in their laboratory notebooks, knowing they will have to memorize the technical names and locations of each for Friday's test. The big research universities are abuzz with much more advanced work, of course. Thermal imaging is used to see how much heat the various computer parts produce in real time and how this depends on the application being run. The big-time scientists can even read the zeros and ones from an entire hard disk and test the effects of changing a zero to a one, or vice versa. All very high tech.

Nevertheless, what eludes all these 'old school computer scientists, despite their hard work, is the hefty matter of understanding what a computer is. To know what a computer is made of and what kind of thing it can do is one thing. To know what it is, is another. The first is of some value, but will be severely limited without the second. All thinkers are given a context in which to think, and when part of that context is the unquestioned assumption that the things being studied were caused only by other things, then the ideas that may have been the real cause are bound to be overlooked.

Shortsightedness of this kind begins with a failure of conviction. When we abandon our design intuition we lose the most potent alarm that would tell us the wrong road has been taken. Having silenced that alarm, workers on the old road may continue for any number of generations, assuring themselves of their productivity by pointing to the continual growth of knowledge, without ever pausing to contemplate the distinction between knowledge and understanding. Ironically, the inadequacy of the old-school perspective perpetuates the old school work by guaranteeing that the goal of complete knowledge will never be reached. [...]

Most of us would be shocked to know the actual state of [scientific] ignorance with respect to DNA.
The view that most aspects of living things can be attributed neatly to specific genes has been known by geneticists to be false for a long time, this being the first common DNA myth to fail. A second, which has fallen only quite recently, is that scientists even have a clear understanding of what a gene is. Without exaggeration, a recent article in Science and Education stated that "the gene concept is currently in crisis". It turns out that the simple picture of a gene as a section of DNA that encodes a protein no longer holds for anything but bacteria. To give you and idea of how far current thinking has moved from that simple view in recent years, consider this excerpt from a prominent article in Genome Research:

"One metaphor that is increasingly popular for describing genes is to think of them in terms of subroutines in a huge operating system (OS). That s, insofar as the nucleotides of the genome are put together into a code that is executed through the process of transcription and translation, the genome can be thought of an an operating system for a living being. Genes are then individual subroutines in this overall system that are repetitively called in the process of transcription."

The fact that ideas like this can be expressed under the materialist flag is a good thing. The problem comes when people want to take such radical thoughts seriously. For example, if genomes really are like operating systems, then the thought of them carrying the blueprints for building the bodies of their possessors is as wrong as the thought of the iPhone operating system carrying the plans for the manufacturing of the iPhone itself. And if we allow ourselves to take that idea seriously, then the thought of genetic mutations having changed a primordial organism into all modern forms of life is seen to be confused over and above its mistaken reliance on accidental causes. For an iPhone 5 to be converted into an iPhone 6 by upgrading its operating system is categorically impossible - with or without insight. Extending that principle to life would take us beyond our conclusion that modern life can't be the product of accidental mutations - implying it can't be the product of mutations at all.
 
For an iPhone 5 to be converted into an iPhone 6 by upgrading its operating system is categorically impossible - with or without insight. Extending that principle to life would take us beyond our conclusion that modern life can't be the product of accidental mutations - implying it can't be the product of mutations at all.

It is beginning to make more and more sense to me that we have been designed and redesigned many times perhaps. We are always an experiment and a Work in progress if the sessions are to be considered in light of more and more discoveries. It is not such a stretch for me to believe the Cs when they say we have been tampered with from the original design and it makes me wonder what the Orion labs really wanted the design to be "originally". How we can be upgraded or at least return to the original design is not clear to me but seems possible or reasonable.
 
I remember years and years ago reading someone's argument against ID, saying that the very flawed configuration of the throat proved an absence of intelligent design. Of course, we've all experienced food or liquid getting into the windpipe instead of going down the esophagus as intended. Even so, I always felt that humans were a product of God and that perhaps evolution was God's way of bringing life forms into existence either from elementary stardust to quasi-fishies crawling out of the sea onto terra firma. Have to admit I didn't spend a lot of time comtemplating the process other than when the issue cropped up in the schools - creationist vs evolutionist. My disbelief in Bible/religion in general tilted me away from the Biblical creation scenario and more toward evolution being a fact to some degree. Being more engaged w/ the ongoing turmoil of everyday life on a national/global level, I really didn't think too much about the details of evolution theory and really had no idea how much Darwinism was influencing science, education, etc. or indeed, how ridiculous it actually is. But then, I've always put too much stock in common sense. Why would intelligent men of science advocate for something if it had no credence? And let's face it, before the current decades, how many of us could envision being genetically engineered in some far off corner of space and then seeded onto earth as a part of some experiment? So sure, compared to that, descending from apes didn't seem that crazy.

The information being presented here has really brought me up to speed re this issue. I'm always thrilled to access factual info over unsupported theories being pushed as scientific fact. Considering that all of us have grown up in a world comprised of all-encompassing lies big and small, is it really any wonder we have trouble figuring out what is really the truth? Plus, the PTB have gone to great lengths to dumb us down as much as possible and if that isn't enough, instituting laws to maintain the status quo. I guess it's a race now between the 3D/4D STS and the 'jump' that I presume the Wave is going to wallop humanity with. And I guess I signed on for this but it's all so mindblowing. More and more, it's 'sit back and watch the show' for me. IOW, read more - worry less. Breathe.
 
I remember years and years ago reading someone's argument against ID, saying that the very flawed configuration of the throat proved an absence of intelligent design. Of course, we've all experienced food or liquid getting into the windpipe instead of going down the esophagus as intended. Even so, I always felt that humans were a product of God and that perhaps evolution was God's way of bringing life forms into existence either from elementary stardust to quasi-fishies crawling out of the sea onto terra firma. Have to admit I didn't spend a lot of time comtemplating the process other than when the issue cropped up in the schools - creationist vs evolutionist. My disbelief in Bible/religion in general tilted me away from the Biblical creation scenario and more toward evolution being a fact to some degree. Being more engaged w/ the ongoing turmoil of everyday life on a national/global level, I really didn't think too much about the details of evolution theory and really had no idea how much Darwinism was influencing science, education, etc. or indeed, how ridiculous it actually is. But then, I've always put too much stock in common sense. Why would intelligent men of science advocate for something if it had no credence? And let's face it, before the current decades, how many of us could envision being genetically engineered in some far off corner of space and then seeded onto earth as a part of some experiment? So sure, compared to that, descending from apes didn't seem that crazy.

The information being presented here has really brought me up to speed re this issue. I'm always thrilled to access factual info over unsupported theories being pushed as scientific fact. Considering that all of us have grown up in a world comprised of all-encompassing lies big and small, is it really any wonder we have trouble figuring out what is really the truth? Plus, the PTB have gone to great lengths to dumb us down as much as possible and if that isn't enough, instituting laws to maintain the status quo. I guess it's a race now between the 3D/4D STS and the 'jump' that I presume the Wave is going to wallop humanity with. And I guess I signed on for this but it's all so mindblowing. More and more, it's 'sit back and watch the show' for me. IOW, read more - worry less. Breathe.


Jeep. You've mirrored my thoughts exactly but said it so much better than I could. Thanks
 
I think it is ironic that under the atheism of Darwinism, the scientists have achieved priest like status. So many people on social media and in day to day life defer to scientists as if they were wise all knowing beings. Suggesting that science is not settled in a particular area (climate, vaccine, smoking for example) brings such abuse. These people are upset that their priests and their religion are under attack. Peer reviewed science and the scientists who do it - that is the sacred text now. And of course anybody who is not toeing the line is a charlatan effectively a heretic bought off by big oil.

I saw somebody on Twitter the other day castigate all of the climate skeptics - he said if you used a computer, a microwave oven, a phone, a car, electrivity, air conditioning - they were all designed by the same people who tell us global warming is real. How can you use those things and at the same time reject what they are telling you about climate? There are so many thing s wrong with that tirade I almost don't know where to start.

And lets be honest, these scientists really love being on a pedestal, it's an extra perk of the job and just another reason no to allow ID to achieve any traction
 
I think it is ironic that under the atheism of Darwinism, the scientists have achieved priest like status. So many people on social media and in day to day life defer to scientists as if they were wise all knowing beings. Suggesting that science is not settled in a particular area (climate, vaccine, smoking for example) brings such abuse. These people are upset that their priests and their religion are under attack. Peer reviewed science and the scientists who do it - that is the sacred text now.
People in the mainstream are only given two choices, fake religion or fake science (two party system). So it makes sense that each would have their own high priests. And it's sad to see smart alternative scientists embrace fake religion. I guess it's too traumatizing to reject both fake science and fake religion.
 
I always felt that humans were a product of God and that perhaps evolution was God's way of bringing life forms into existence either from elementary stardust to quasi-fishies crawling out of the sea onto terra firma. Have to admit I didn't spend a lot of time comtemplating the process other than when the issue cropped up in the schools - creationist vs evolutionist. My disbelief in Bible/religion in general tilted me away from the Biblical creation scenario and more toward evolution being a fact to some degree. Being more engaged w/ the ongoing turmoil of everyday life on a national/global level, I really didn't think too much about the details of evolution theory and really had no idea how much Darwinism was influencing science, education, etc. or indeed, how ridiculous it actually is. But then, I've always put too much stock in common sense. Why would intelligent men of science advocate for something if it had no credence? And let's face it, before the current decades, how many of us could envision being genetically engineered in some far off corner of space and then seeded onto earth as a part of some experiment? So sure, compared to that, descending from apes didn't seem that crazy.

The above is pretty much my own experience, especially the bolded part. And, as Hlat said, "it's sad to see smart alternative scientists embrace fake religion".

They let the science take them where it goes: Intelligent Design, and then they throw out science and think they can't explore beyond that.
 
People in the mainstream are only given two choices, fake religion or fake science (two party system). So it makes sense that each would have their own high priests. And it's sad to see smart alternative scientists embrace fake religion. I guess it's too traumatizing to reject both fake science and fake religion.

And yet they are those brave ones that reject the dogma and courageously speak out against the Establishment”s beliefs/theories such as Rupert Sheldrake, Behe, Bruce Lipton, Andrew Wakefield to name a few. They are denounced and ridiculed with disastrous consequences to their careers like in Wakefield’s case, & most especially if there is Big Money behind the skewed science (vaccines & Big Pharma for eg).
 
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