"Intelligent Design: The scrotum. I'm a man. The most painful part on my body - this intelligent designer chose to put in a bag that anyone could walk across and hit with a baseball bat."
You'll note that while they say he's a "doctor", they don't mention that it's a doctorate of psuedoscience from an unaccredited religious loony institution.
I found it refreshing that an "Intelligent Design" person said that science and so on is something he believes in - just that who is to say that a higher power hasn't helped it along here and there.
And I also like the scientists rebuttal. That can he be positivve that that God doesn't have a hand in some things? Of course not. But what he can prove scientifically is...
I felt it a nice middle of the road conversation. The loonie gal though.. wow.
Stewart: "So what you are saying is that the creation of the universe is the Hollywood Squares?!"
Dembski is always very careful to avoid making truly absurd statements when he'll get pounded for them on TV. He especially is too smart to try most things on a literate, pro-science forum like The Daily Show where he's really likely to have the nonsensical things he says pointed out.
He barely got out alive with the "So, which came first, the religious conversion or seeing evidence of design?" questions, and he got a time-based free pass on his invocation of Rushmore.
Well, the question is really: if you came across Rushmore a million years hence, when you might conceivably just imagine that those eroded mountain flanks might look a bit like faces, do you *then* consider it to have been designed or accident?
You do not, however, say "God must have done it. Teach that in schools! God did it, so we don't need to consider *how* it happened" until you're sure that A) there's no way for it to have been natural and B) that "God did it" is, in fact, the best hypothesis.
The watchmaker breaks down. Irreducible complexity would be pretty good, if they could produce just one single solitary example of it - and they can't.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 04:22 am (UTC)I'm still giggling.
-K
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 03:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 03:38 pm (UTC)You'll note that while they say he's a "doctor", they don't mention that it's a doctorate of psuedoscience from an unaccredited religious loony institution.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 07:45 pm (UTC)And I also like the scientists rebuttal. That can he be positivve that that God doesn't have a hand in some things? Of course not. But what he can prove scientifically is...
I felt it a nice middle of the road conversation. The loonie gal though.. wow.
Stewart: "So what you are saying is that the creation of the universe is the Hollywood Squares?!"
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 07:56 pm (UTC)He barely got out alive with the "So, which came first, the religious conversion or seeing evidence of design?" questions, and he got a time-based free pass on his invocation of Rushmore.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 10:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 10:19 pm (UTC)You do not, however, say "God must have done it. Teach that in schools! God did it, so we don't need to consider *how* it happened" until you're sure that A) there's no way for it to have been natural and B) that "God did it" is, in fact, the best hypothesis.
The watchmaker breaks down. Irreducible complexity would be pretty good, if they could produce just one single solitary example of it - and they can't.