(September 1, 2014 at 9:45 am)Esquilax Wrote:(September 1, 2014 at 7:21 am)Michael Wrote: What I am advocating is the engagement between different people. I'm not saying that ID doesn't have weaknesses, far from it. But I don't see that as a barrier to science and scientists engaging in a common market place of public discourse. Part of that can be, and should be, highlighting weaknesses in ID. It's the refusal to enter into the discourse that I was, and am, objecting to.
I guess that's the point I'm making, is that if you think the ID side has any interest in an honest conversation about science, if you think for even a minute that they'll come to the table of scientific discourse in the spirit of open and investigative study that you're advocating, then you are sorely mistaken. They have a track record of doing exactly the opposite, and that is why scientists refuse to engage with them. Their ideas are almost devoid of content to begin with, and the debate would involve one side being honest while the other wages an aggressive campaign of misinformation.
Then maybe we have to invite ID to that table, wine them, dine them and first engage them in pleasant chit chat. Then, when the mood is right, and after having demonstrated what wonderful and well intentioned folks we are, we unleash Michael on them. We don't go for the jugular pushing for no-god. No, we just show how good science can be redeemed by good theology.
When they counter with a question science can't answer we admit it freely. Perhaps we join them to ponder what evidence one might find which would indicate the manipulation of a deity. In the end though we conclude that whatever (if any) deities there may be, they were careful to leave no trace of their manipulations.
Perhaps this leads to a narrowing of what science religious groups resist having taught in the public schools. If so, the effort would have been worth it.
