R.C. Sproul interviews Ben Stein

Interesting interview, here's the link.

Interesting post...

From Uncommon Descent:The Mystery of Global Warming's Missing Heat

Refining....

I'm trying to refine and define a few old arguments which I tend to use as a pattern. I save comments here so I can find them. Given the repetitious pattern of some of this debate I should probably save more.

From a comment:
Wow, your mythical creator man sounds extremely well thought out and complex. Far too complex to have just "come about".

The reasoning of that argument seems to go like this: "If you say that an organism is too complex to have come about randomly then I can apply that argument to God and say that God is too complex to have come about. Once I have said that God is too complex to have a random origin I can then believe that anything can just happen."

Feel free to clear up your irrational and random arguments. After all, if I make them more intelligible you will just argue that I'm putting words in your mouth and so on and I'm content to let natural selection operating on your ancestry of worms put words in your mouth.

So who intelligently designed your mythical creator man?

I don't expect your mind to grasp any ontological distinctions. It seems that those with the Darwinian urge to merge all species, form, distinction and specification together cannot grasp elementary distinctions. Let it suffice to say that given what the Word says of itself, it creates itself: "I AM that I AM." and all that. If you are created as a reflection of something of that nature then you have the capacity to select and create as well. If not then what you say here has more to do with natural selection operating on the reproductive and excretory organs of ancient ape-like creatures than with intelligence. You should know that generally when Nature calls excrement happens, yet instead you insist on attributing creative power to natural selections and so on. What selected natural selection? Does intelligence and language seem unnatural to you?

Comment on irreducible complexity

The irreducible complexity argument is based on the claim that evolution cannot produce a certain system. As soon as a feasible evolutionary route is proposed that argument falls apart.

What can generally be observed empirically is typically a form of irreducible complexity where if a part is taken away then a lack of function results. For sociological, psychological, political, theological or some other reason many scientists do not treat what is generally observed as the evidence that it is. Look at yourself for example, you neglect empirical observation and instead focus on proposing "feasible evolutionary" routes in line with Darwinian reasoning: "If an organism could be found which I could not imagine coming about in a gradual sequence of events then my theory would absolutely break down." For some reason those who are the first to blindly assert: "There is no evidence." also seem to be those most willing to cite their own imaginations as the equivalent of empirical evidence.

Irreducible complexity isn't an "argument" similar to Darwinian reasoning, it's generally an empirical observation which can be observed in the form and function of organisms. If one does not go the Darwinian route of imagining your own imagination to be the equivalent of empirical evidence you quickly see that the capacity to imagine things doesn't change empirical facts or explain the history of all biological specification, form and species. (Link)

Obamaism?

From a comment:

It doesn't surprise me that your students repeat your “[Natural selection] is not random” mantra back to you like sheep,and are willing to accept all of this unsubstantiated naturalistic rubbbish as though it were unquestionable fact.
Most students these days are just empty heads full of mush, ready to believe whatever they are told. That’s why all the kids are for Obama. He tells them he believes in ”change”, in “hope” and in “the future”. Like Darwinism, Obama-ism sounds good, but it lacks any actual realistic or specific mechanism to achieve what it claims to be able to deliver.

(Tyharris at UncommonDissent)

Faith in change itself is an interesting pattern. Even if history shows that change is likely to be destructive progressives have always tended to believe that change naturally/generally leads to progress.

My comment on Obama would be this, it seems to me like every candidate that relies on the vacuous "Deaniac vote" typical to American college students ultimately loses. Perhaps despite being a good voting bloc for rallies where everyone yells for change, it's actually too fickle and apathetic to be relied on for doing much more than running with the Herd. Their form of rallying seems to be like what they do every weekend at parties where they yell about their feelings about things.

I could be wrong, maybe this time the Herd will be different for a change.