Quote from Ricter:
I believe it was you crying like a pantywaist very early in this thread about "ad hominem". Now look at yourself for a dozen replies or so.
Answer the question.
I have decided to post here again for two reasons. First, because of my belief about what the thread has shown about the advisability of making ID the subject of formalized study in our schools. Second, because of the turn that this thread has taken; specifically, I am concerned about Z's descent into pure ad hominem attack in the past 10 pages or so. I feel it is important to point out that Z was substituting charges of personal attack for any substantive response to the various questions that several respondents had asked him about assertions re: ID.
I would like to provide a summary of some of Z's statements on this thread, so that those who can't wade through 100 pages can get a sense of his arguments and his approach to the dialectic which he initiated by starting this thread.
Here are some selected quotes from Z over the past few weeks. Responding to requests for clarifications of some of his more unusual claims
I am satisfied with my responses.
I don't agree with your conclusions, and don't care about them.
When I am looking for your conclusions, I will ask for them....
I have acknowledged that [you asked me a] question...though quite stupid in my estimation, and as such I see no reason to answer this stupid question.....Not answering a stupid question is not evasion in my "book."
I don't think that question is worth answering.
Oh, I do very much object to your question, on the grounds of stupidity.....
My momma taught me that I didn't have to answer stupid questions.....no matter how demanding the inquisitor was....
I think your question sucked, so why should I answer it? p.s. Oh, and in a court of law, when an attorney objects to a question so that his client need not answer the unnecessary and/or irrelevant/illegal question, it is not an act of evasion, it is an act of maintaining jurisprudence.....
You have your story, a stupid one
I don't agree with your conclusion of having failed to address any qualified challenges. I believe I have addressed any qualified challenges. The insipid challenges are not something I will likely respond to.
Here is Z on the fossil record
Do we know dinosaurs did exist and live on this earth?
how could you prove that the "dinosaur dung" was not planted, or that the dinosaurs were not just visiting from another planet?
Is it a logical possibility that they bones were placed on this earth from an alternate location?
some assorted comments....
Darwinism is a theory of scientists, not a scientific theory.
The earth is 1,972,949,101 year old
[When asked to explain his theory of the origin of life on Earth]: Magistrates are materialized out of pure potentiality
Question: Is a representative democracy to be preferred to a benevolent dictatorship?
Answer: Not necessarily.
The true nature of science is agnostic, as it properly comments only on what it knows, and where it doesn't know, it is silent.
In this last statement, Z is either revealing himself to be unaware of, or willfully ignoring the fact that the process of scientific inquiry can be
defined as the positing of theories about things we
don't know about, and then attempting to verify those theories by experiment.
Here, I specifically cite two things he said and ask him to explain an apparent problem
quote from Z
Pick any species, and I can predict what the lifespan will be within a reasonable time frame barring external damage to the organism by the environment.
This ability to predict lifespan is the indication of order, not chaos.
I asked him the following question: How can you say you can predict human lifespan? How do you know what human lifespan will be 400,000 years in the future? I don't think you can predict human lifespan!! You would have to believe that the current human lifespan is fixed!!
His response, given verbatim
quote from Z
I did not assert that the current human lifespan is proof of ID.
I continued to press Z about his assertions regarding the natural lifespans of biological organisms and whether he could possibly have information about the ontogenetic profile of every organism that has ever lived, lives now, and will live in the future. Here is his response.
quote from Z10
I leave you to psychologists and other mental health professionals who can perhaps treat your condition, assuming you ever come to grips with it.
Finally, I'd like to show the reader some selected quotes which suggest a lack of semantic clarity. It is instructive to read through the following paragraphs, in that they show what Z does when confronted with questions which are very difficult to answer. These paragraphs are difficult to understand, even after repeated readings. All italics are mine.
Design theory doesn't require specifics in the same way as logical deduction, as it is the result of a logical induction process. The specifics themselves and their behavior are the facts, and the fact that species are born, they have a lifespan, and they all die is the necessary observation that has been repeated and verified.
Evolutionists argue from speculative conclusion, which is most unscientific, and explains why they are dogmatic and fearful of teaching alternative non Darwinism theories. It is shaping the relationship of data points to support a conclusion, not to reach one. Scientists are trying so hard to prove evolution and Darwinism, and this preconceived bias is what continues to make their efforts and conclusions automatically unscientific.
The species are able to overcome the 2nd law of thermodynamics by cell regeneration and other mechanism of renewal during the lifespan, but the process of renewal and regeneration loses its efficacy. There fore is it entirely logical to conclude that all biological organisms are designed to be born, have a lifespan, then die....and this unbroken pattern is by design
and this very telling example
Tell me what you know for a fact is new, that has never existed, that was never on this earth, that was never known before.
No, and a lack of any historical record of something is not evidence that something didn't exist previously.
For you to claim that something is "new" you must exclude all possibility that it is new to this earth.
It may be new to you, or new to someone who didn't know it before, but if something is new to this earth, then it never existed before. Prove it.
Taken as a whole, I believe these quotes from Z10 reveal that he is not representing ID in an objective and dispassionate way. There may be value in the theory, but it is not being reflected here, by this type of argument. I believe that if we were to assess ID based solely on the arguments provided by Z, we could safely assume the theory is currently too weak to be the subject of formalized study in our schools
