Nearly a million stars seem to have gone missing from the nearby globular cluster Messier 12, located within the constellation Ophiuchus. Our own Milky Way, scientists say, may be to blame.

That's right, you don't f*ck with our galaxy or you'll get a full can of star-stealing whoopass.

Nearly a million stars seem to have gone missing from the nearby globular cluster Messier 12, located within the constellation Ophiuchus. Our own Milky Way, scientists say, may be to blame.

Mmmmm..... Globular clusters.... </Homer>

That encouraged scientists to go and develop a computer model of exactly how the eye evolved, (which it seems to have done about 40 times independently around the animal kingdom). By proving ID wrong, it has increased our understanding of evolution and biology.

Interesting.

But that's separating the idea from the movement. Which I do.

I think this is an important thing to do, because "Intelligent Design" is such a well-designed marketing term that it does describe the beliefs of many sensible people outside of the core promoters.

ita, I wonder if this is where you and I aren't getting each other. Because capital I capital D Intellingent Design, IMO, can't legitimately be separated from the movement. What I don't mean to imply is that "believing that God is working within the framework of natural laws to shape the Universe to some plan" necessarily indicates any connection at all.

I can tell you for a fact that some educated people actually and genuinely believe in His existence.

Sure. That's evident all around me in a scientific environment. I don't see religious scientists having quandries of faith because their work disproves a parable. I haven't met any that take parables about whales and 7 days and ribs and dust as literal, though. If that makes any difference in the argument.

Went to the Dr. What took a total of 3 hours round trip feels like, well something longer and painful. I think the Dr. spent maybe 10 minutes with me, which is not a complaint, just makes me feel like I wasted my time and money going. Result: Virus. Eat more (Toast, Apples, Bananas, and Raisons - the fruit is all new news to me) and drink more, clear liquids. That's it.

After one relapse this morning, the fever does seem to have departed so that is good.

I am good and wiped out though.

I'm all sad about the total and utter tainting of the term "Intelligent Design;" when I first heard it several long years ago, it sounded like a perfectly decent descriptor of people who both believe in God and are down with the Big Bang and evolution and all that smart thinky-people stuff

I'm with JZ. When I first heard of Intelligent Design, many years ago, it basically went something like this: there was a Big Bang, you betcha. But *who* do you think set the Big Bang into motion? That it's perfectly possible that an intelligent creator god designed this universe, and designed it *to evolve.*

I mean, it's scarcely possible that anyone who ever took a human anatomy class really believes that we were designed by an intelligent creator.

I took human anatomy, and, to the contrary, I think the design of the human body and all its systems is *proof* of an intelligent creator.

Your previous statement questioned the integrity of people very close to me by saying that either they don't know human anatomy woth a damn, or they're lying about their belief in a Creator.

Wolfram, I said nothing in general about belief in a creator. The structure of the human body tells us nothing about the existence or nonexistence of a creator. I said that human anatomy argues against the particular theory of ID.

It's entirely possible to believe in a creator without believing stupid things, as numerous Buffistas have demonstrated over and over.

While I'm happy to debate the existence of G*d for hours on end, I can tell you for a fact that some educated people actually and genuinely believe in His existence.

Belief in God is not the issue, though, it's that ID explicitly denies the possibility of macroevolution. But the human knee and back plainly show that we must have evolved from a four-legged animal. Ergo, ID is at odds with basic anatomy.

MONKEYS!

I took human anatomy, and, to the contrary, I think the design of the human body and all its systems is *proof* of an intelligent creator.

I’m curious about this Steph. If you consider the back, the knee, the appendix, or the thousands of failed “experiments” that we find recorded in our DNA, don’t these things seem more consistent with a gradual and imperfect process of evolution, a process that is constrained by its history, than they are with an a priori design by a supreme being? I mean, if we were designed so intelligently, why do we need a pharmaceutical industry?