Harsh Truth: If Intelligent Design is Untestable . . .

[leibowde84]

That's reality. Because studying evolution theory you reject subjectivty and deny freedom is real. That places you outside the human experience.

So, you are saying that studying evolution means that you reject subjectivity? I didn't realize that studying anything had any declarative aspect. Learning about something doesn't mean that you have to agree with it, right? Just like considering certain possibilities does not mean that you abandon others?

 

[leibowde84]

I never said that Islam should not be tarnished or judged by the actions of muslim terrorist or brutal Islamic regimes. I simply employ a forgiving judgement in regards to Islam.

It is not a miniscule amount of evolutionists. I have never seen any evolutionist who is not a social darwinist of one kind or another. It is, as far as I know, 100 percent of evolutionists who are social darwinists. Which is of course because subjectivity is a fundamentally creationist concept, and evolution theory is poised against creationism.

This is completely illogical. I'm not sure that you are using the right terms here. I have never met a single Social Darwinist in my life, and I am surrounded by people who believe in the scientific theory of evolution. That is not surprising, as they are not related in any real way ... apart from the name. See below for an in-depth explanation of your erroneous assumption.

Evolution (scientific theory - explanatory): the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

Social Darwinism (social order theory - active social planning): the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.

1. Evolution is a way of explaining the process by which living things adapt, survive and change naturally over billions of years, while Social Darwinism is an active social planning mechanism where "natural selection" is not involved. On the contrary, Social Darwinism uses "unnatural selection", or selection by the powerful, in order to actively make sure that the weak members of a human society do not procreate.
2. The majority of the developed world believe that evolution is an accurate theory. But, Social Darwinism has been almost completely discredited. Thus, your erroneous claim that "all evolutionists you have spoken to are Social Darwinists" is implausible and completely ludicrous. It is a practically dead social construct theory, having absolutely nothing to do with scientific discovery.

So, what leads you to the mistaken assumption that most "evolutionists" you have come across adhere to the social construct theory of Social Darwinism? Or, are you just pulling that out of your @$$? It is a pretty ludicrous claim, as the two theories have extremely little to do with each other, but I am all ears if you have some kind of substantial reasoning for your erroneous subjective opinion.

 

[jonathan180iq]

That's reality. Because studying evolution theory you reject subjectivty and deny freedom is real. That places you outside the human experience.

Yet here I am, part of the human experience, same as you and everyone else on the planet...

 

[Deathbydefault]

It is not a miniscule amount of evolutionists. I have never seen any evolutionist who is not a social darwinist of one kind or another. It is, as far as I know, 100 percent of evolutionists who are social darwinists. Which is of course because subjectivity is a fundamentally creationist concept, and evolution theory is poised against creationism.

Then you very obviously do not know much.

Stick to subjectivity and opinions, leave the facts to those progressing the world.

 

[leibowde84]

I never said that Islam should not be tarnished or judged by the actions of muslim terrorist or brutal Islamic regimes. I simply employ a forgiving judgement in regards to Islam.

It is not a miniscule amount of evolutionists. I have never seen any evolutionist who is not a social darwinist of one kind or another. It is, as far as I know, 100 percent of evolutionists who are social darwinists. Which is of course because subjectivity is a fundamentally creationist concept, and evolution theory is poised against creationism.

Just out of curiosity, which Social Darwinists have you met? I've never come across one in my life, so I'm interested to hear.

 

[leibowde84]

I never said that Islam should not be tarnished or judged by the actions of muslim terrorist or brutal Islamic regimes. I simply employ a forgiving judgement in regards to Islam.

It is not a miniscule amount of evolutionists. I have never seen any evolutionist who is not a social darwinist of one kind or another. It is, as far as I know, 100 percent of evolutionists who are social darwinists. Which is of course because subjectivity is a fundamentally creationist concept, and evolution theory is poised against creationism.

Wait, so I'm starting to think that you don't know what Social Darwinism means, as it wouldn't be logically possible that all people who believe in evolution would adhere to it. Do you really think that the majority of Western Civilization are hidden social darwinists? If so, how can you explain the apparent and obvious animosity toward that way of thinking present in the western world?

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

This is completely illogical. I'm not sure that you are using the right terms here. I have never met a single Social Darwinist in my life, and I am surrounded by people who believe in the scientific theory of evolution. That is not surprising, as they are not related in any real way ... apart from the name. See below for an in-depth explanation of your erroneous assumption.

Evolution (scientific theory - explanatory): the process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.

Social Darwinism (social order theory - active social planning): the theory that individuals, groups, and peoples are subject to the same Darwinian laws of natural selection as plants and animals. Now largely discredited, social Darwinism was advocated by Herbert Spencer and others in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and was used to justify political conservatism, imperialism, and racism and to discourage intervention and reform.

1. Evolution is a way of explaining the process by which living things adapt, survive and change naturally over billions of years, while Social Darwinism is an active social planning mechanism where "natural selection" is not involved. On the contrary, Social Darwinism uses "unnatural selection", or selection by the powerful, in order to actively make sure that the weak members of a human society do not procreate.
2. The majority of the developed world believe that evolution is an accurate theory. But, Social Darwinism has been almost completely discredited. Thus, your erroneous claim that "all evolutionists you have spoken to are Social Darwinists" is implausible and completely ludicrous. It is a practically dead social construct theory, having absolutely nothing to do with scientific discovery.

So, what leads you to the mistaken assumption that most "evolutionists" you have come across adhere to the social construct theory of Social Darwinism? Or, are you just pulling that out of your @$$? It is a pretty ludicrous claim, as the two theories have extremely little to do with each other, but I am all ears if you have some kind of substantial reasoning for your erroneous subjective opinion.

You are already a social darwinist if you interpret natural selection theory as saying that it is a fact that organisms like to live. And the phrasing of natural selection theory as differential reproductive "succes", "beneficial" mutations, "struggle for" survival, coupled with it's rejection of creationism, ensures that practically 100 percent of evolutionists interpret natural selection theory that way and are social darwinists.

And all the evidence that is available shows that evolutionists are social darwinists.

That you don't count yourself as a social darwinist is of course ridiculous. You fanatically reject the proposition there is any freedom in the universe at large whatsoever. Which means you define choosing in terms of sorting out the best result, where the facts of what is good and evil act as sorting criteria. You propose good and evil as fact, which is what social darwinism is all about. That maybe you don't accept as fact that survival is the factual good, doesn't mean it is not social darwinist. The factual good posited in natural selection theory was the catalyst for the temptation to regard goodness as a matter of fact issue, which is why you don't attribute goodness or evil of a man to their spirit choosing.

 

[leibowde84]

You are already a social darwinist if you interpret natural selection theory as saying that it is a fact that organisms like to live. And the phrasing of natural selection theory as differential reproductive "succes", "beneficial" mutations, "struggle for" survival, coupled with it's rejection of creationism, ensures that practically 100 percent of evolutionists interpret natural selection theory that way and are social darwinists.

And all the evidence that is available shows that evolutionists are social darwinists.

That you don't count yourself as a social darwinist is of course ridiculous. You fanatically reject the proposition there is any freedom in the universe at large whatsoever. Which means you define choosing in terms of sorting out the best result, where the facts of what is good and evil act as sorting criteria. You propose good and evil as fact, which is what social darwinism is all about. That maybe you don't accept as fact that survival is the factual good, doesn't mean it is not social darwinist. The factual good posited in natural selection theory was the catalyst for the temptation to regard goodness as a matter of fact issue, which is why you don't attribute goodness or evil of a man to their spirit choosing.

Nothing stated here is even related to social darwinism, as it only applies to people engineering human society through eugenics. It has no reliance on a rejection of subjectivity. I have to assume that you don't know what social darwinism is.

 

[Deathbydefault]

You are already a social darwinist if you interpret natural selection theory as saying that it is a fact that organisms like to live. And the phrasing of natural selection theory as differential reproductive "succes", "beneficial" mutations, "struggle for" survival, coupled with it's rejection of creationism, ensures that practically 100 percent of evolutionists interpret natural selection theory that way and are social darwinists.

And all the evidence that is available shows that evolutionists are social darwinists.

That you don't count yourself as a social darwinist is of course ridiculous. You fanatically reject the proposition there is any freedom in the universe at large whatsoever. Which means you define choosing in terms of sorting out the best result, where the facts of what is good and evil act as sorting criteria. You propose good and evil as fact, which is what social darwinism is all about. That maybe you don't accept as fact that survival is the factual good, doesn't mean it is not social darwinist. The factual good posited in natural selection theory was the catalyst for the temptation to regard goodness as a matter of fact issue, which is why you don't attribute goodness or evil of a man to their spirit choosing.

You know we can make unrealistic claims of you and what we think you believe too....

 

[Parsimony]

When one’s ideas is push into ones throat it’s an ideology, right?

Firstly, I never argued that eugenics was not an ideology. Secondly, trying to force someone to accept something as fact is not necessarily an ideology. Trying to prove to someone that the Earth is round would not be an ideology because it is something that can be confirmed as fact. Ideologies are opinions.

It was the author’s theory, wasn’t it?

Do you really think evolutionists accept the theory of evolution because "Darwin said so"? That's not how it works at all. We accept it because the evidence has borne it out. A person can be right about one thing and wrong about another. Heck, we know that Darwin's views about evolution were incomplete or sometimes even wrong.

No one is denying microevolution. It happens every day. Microevolution is not a theory. Eugenics is a theory base on macroevolution. Macroevolution is a theoretical extrapolation of microevolution.

What makes you think eugenics is uniquely related to macroevolution and not microevolution? You yourself said that eugenics is a form of artificial selection, which is just natural selection as controlled by humans. Eugenics does not even require the existence of macroevolution. Remember, eugenics proposes to improve the quality of the human species, not turn the human species into something brand new. That would make eugenics a form of microevolution and not macroevolution. Even if it was true that evolutionists were invariably eugenicists, it would have absolutely no impact at all on whether evolution is a real phenomenon and you know it. This is called the "argument from consequences fallacy".

Can you tell the difference between the two?

Microevolution is change on the species level whereas macroevolution is change beyond the species level (genus, family, order, etc.). The difference between the two is defined in my college textbook.

One’s life always defends on nature, right? If one fits in an environment then one will survive, if not, then one would or should die, right?

There is a very, very big difference between saying one would die and one should die. "Would" implies that it is something that happens automatically as a result of natural events, whereas as "should" implies that it is something that is desired or willed.

Let’s say for example; through natural selection, it takes 3 generations for a man to adapt into an environment where we all consider as a healthy, prosperous and progressive environment. On the other hand; through artificial selection, it takes only 1 generation to achieve a healthy, prosperous and progressive environment.

One is through natural selection, but it takes a lot of years to develop, and the other one is through artificial selection and it does not require many years to develop.

In natural selection, nature chooses its favorable variants, but it takes a lot of years to develop, while in artificial selection it’s the man who chooses the variants he wanted to form and a lot quicker than nature.

I know the difference between artificial and natural selection. Accepting that natural selection is a real phenomenon does not mean that one must advocate artificial selection of humans. It's wrong to forcibly sterilize or kill someone to keep their genes from making it to the next generation. I do not advocate eugenics.

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Hermann Schaaffhausen|Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” - Charles Darwin (1871)The Descent of Man.

Darwin's speculation about the future of humanity is his own opinion and does not have to be accepted by any other evolutionist if they do not want to accept it. We do not see Charles Darwin as some divine figure with infallible words. If you think evolutionists look at him that way, then you are seriously mistaken. We recognize he was human with flaws just like the rest of us.

I'm still waiting for you to respond to my comment about nuclear fission: does accepting nuclear fission as a real phenomenon mean that one must also advocate dropping nuclear bombs on people? It's the same thing as claiming that accepting evolution as a real phenomenon means that you must advocate eugenics. So then, do you accept nuclear fission as real?

You are a social darwinist, that's what you got yourself into with evolution theory.

Yep, still trying to cover up/distract from your argument from consequences fallacy.

Are you guys still taking Mohammad Nur Syamsu seriously? Anyone who says atheists or evolutionists don't have emotions is clearly trolling.

 

[Deathbydefault]

Are you guys still taking Mohammad Nur Syamsu seriously? Anyone who says atheists or evolutionists don't have emotions is clearly trolling.

It's only possible for someone of the same level of intelligence to take such things seriously.
I think that they are either trying to just defend their position or correct the poor guy.

He does seem to need all the help he can get, and I'm not even joking.

 

[metis]

Explain macroevolution and microevolution..

First of all, we in anthropology very rarely use either term, but when we do use it the general definitions is that "micro-evolution" deals with changes within species, and "macro-evolution" deals with new species emerging. Eugenics, as a hypothesis, had nothing to do with the latter.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

I'm still waiting for you to respond to my comment about nuclear fission: does accepting nuclear fission as a real phenomenon mean that one must also advocate dropping nuclear bombs on people? It's the same thing as claiming that accepting evolution as a real phenomenon means that you must advocate eugenics. So then, do you accept nuclear fission as real?
.

It's a bogus comparison because the theory of nuclear fission is not phrased in terms of "success" as in differential reproductive success, or "struggle for " anything, like "struggle for" survival.

Natural selection theory is phrased in such a way as to make people identify themselves as being in a struggle for survival, as per law of nature. That doesn't happen with nuclear fission theory.

And moreover evolution theory is poised in direct opposition to creationism, which in it's dual characteristic between creator and creation is the only theory which distinghuishes fact from opinion.

And of course you yourself reject the notion that goodness and evil of a man are properly attributed to the spirit that chooses, because you don't accept the existence of such spirit, because there isn't any evidence for it. You yourself attribute goodness and evil of people to their material attributes, be it genetics like a racist, or their actions, or the processes in their brain.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

It's only possible for someone of the same level of intelligence to take such things seriously.
I think that they are either trying to just defend their position or correct the poor guy.

He does seem to need all the help he can get, and I'm not even joking.

You have said you have a sort of mental condition which is basically that you are not good at subjectivity, and then you come on a religious forum asking if it is okay if you regard every issue as an objective matter of fact. That is not a responsible way to deal with your condition if you ask me.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Nothing stated here is even related to social darwinism, as it only applies to people engineering human society through eugenics. It has no reliance on a rejection of subjectivity. I have to assume that you don't know what social darwinism is.

Of course that is the main point of social darwinism that it confuses ought with is, that it asserts as pseudoscientific fact what is good and evil.

It is interpreting natural selection theory as saying that organisms in fact like to live. Good and evil are derived from what is identified as loving and hateful. So as that if you love icecream, then by this love it is good to eat icecream, and bad to have it taken away and such. Which means that if the existence of love is regarded as fact, then good and evil automatically become a pseudoscientific fact also.

That is why the hitleryouth schoolbook starts out with the title "a factual outlook on life", and then begins to lay all sorts of judgements on diverse groups of people as if they were scientific facts.

And so it was that the universities where chockfull of these racist evolution scientists, who identified themselves as being organisms in a struggle for survival, who then promulgated all sorts of social darwinist ideology far and wide. To Italy, Germany and Japan.

That is of course the ideological mechanism through which conscience is sabotaged, that by making it an issue of fact, emotions simply become irrellevant. Which means emotions are neglected, so the emotion turn sour, and then these sour emotions are the basis for making the pseudoscientific ideas about racial health through genocide and war.

 

[Parsimony]

It's a bogus comparison because the theory of nuclear fission is not phrased in terms of "success" as in differential reproductive success, or "struggle for " anything, like "struggle for" survival.

Natural selection theory is phrased in such a way as to make people identify themselves as being in a struggle for survival, as per law of nature. That doesn't happen with nuclear fission theory.

And moreover evolution theory is poised in direct opposition to creationism, which in it's dual characteristic between creator and creation is the only theory which distinghuishes fact from opinion.

And of course you yourself reject the notion that goodness and evil of a man are properly attributed to the spirit that chooses, because you don't accept the existence of such spirit, because there isn't any evidence for it. You yourself attribute goodness and evil of people to their material attributes, be it genetics like a racist, or their actions, or the processes in their brain.

That's cute.

If you are reading this, JM2C, that question was addressed to you and I still expect an answer.

 

[gnostic]

Right, maybe the matter vs. anti-matter is a good example to use to help me to understand your point. When matter came into contact with anti-matter, one side was bound to win out. In other words, at the end of the "bang" there would either be leftover matter or anti-matter. Since, there was a tad more matter, our universe ended up in the way that we see it now. However, anti-matter is a real entity too. If the amount of anti-matter had been greater than it was in actuality, we would be looking at a universe made of anti-matter ... almost an inverse of what we see today. While this is just a theory, it is a reasoned scientific concept.

The issue I am having is this. The amount of each substance determined what was to happen after the "bang". So, because of these amounts, there was no other possibility. Those amounts determined the possibility. Thus, there was only one possible outcome.

Hypothetically speaking, if "anti-matter" won out, then it is still probable that the universe would be the same today, except everything is reverse charged, except that what we called "anti-matter" right now would be "matter" there, and "matter" now would be called "anti-matter" in the other universe.

 

[David M]

By your last quote, it seems that you are being a bit hypocritical. You often say that Islam should not be tarnished or judged by the actions of terrorists and brutal regimes, yet you judge "evolution" by the actions of ruthless dictators who used Darwin's ideas as reasoning for their own evil plans. Why is it ok to judge evolution by the actions of a minuscule amount of those that believe it to be true, but the same is not reasonable when done with Islam?

Not that the list of dictators is very long. The Nazi's banned the teaching of the ToE, Stalin and the soviet government of the time heavily went for Lamackism over the ToE.

 

[David M]

You are already a social darwinist if you interpret natural selection theory as saying that it is a fact that organisms like to live. .

Almost no one who accepts Evolution interprets it like that. You really know absolutely nothing about what the ToE actually is.

 

[Deathbydefault]

You have said you have a sort of mental condition which is basically that you are not good at subjectivity, and then you come on a religious forum asking if it is okay if you regard every issue as an objective matter of fact. That is not a responsible way to deal with your condition if you ask me.

Ah yes, but my mental condition details my lack of emotion and ability to express emotion.
I can still make opinion based decisions, "I want IHOP because it's better than Denny's".
It isn't always, "statistically IHOP has a better track record when it comes to pancakes".

I'm also not "asking" if something is okay, I do as I please.
I simply use facts and objective thinking to more quickly conclude arguments.
If I thought I could learn something I would happily engage in a more opinion centered argument.
But since there are few things people can teach me that I can't teach myself, I stick to fact based arguments.
Though I may state an opinion here and there for entertainment value.

I believe I am dealing very well with my mental illness, as I am completely in control of myself.
If I just did whatever I wanted at the very least several members of my family would not be in existence.
Along with the strong impulses of violence my life would equate to a straight jacket in a padded room within a single month.
I stay in control because I enjoy progressing my intelligence, when that enjoyment runs out I will embrace freedom of mind.
Even if that means I wont be me anymore, or would that mean I would actually be myself entirely?