How to spot a hidden religious agenda

[Triple Zero]

And if an author describes the mind, or any biological system for that matter, as "irreducibly complex", let the alarm bells ring.

actually, if they argue the opposite, act like they got it all figured out, is when my alarm bell rings even louder.

though probably because I'm more likely to run into an argument with an Atheist fundie than a Christian fundie.

[Iason Ouabache]

"Irreducibly complex" is an Intelligent Design code word.  It roughly means, we don't know how this system came into existence therefore a magic sky fairy did it.  It's a really really complicated argument from ignorance. 

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

What about -

     1) Identifying as an movement/ entity with a unique world/ social/cosmological perspective.

     2) Relating said entity to a deity from human history.

     3) Organizing these views into a 'system' which does not include the uninitiated.

     4) Establishing esoteric language and symbols relating exclusively to this entity.

     

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

That doesn't sound much like the description of a hidden religious agenda in a scientific article to me.

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

That doesn't sound much like the description of a hidden religious agenda in a scientific article to me.

     Getting technical now, are we?

     O.K! - INCLUDE - 5) Making no associations with religion as an entity in all of said entity's propaganda.

     I guess I assumed that part.

     One could also add - curiously deriding religion in the process.

     KILL ME for straying from the precise object/ point of the O.P., because that is absolute heresy on this board.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Your point is inscrutable.

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Your point is inscrutable.

     Nice. That's a sharp blade, She-Warrior of Eris.

     What's that medallion around your neck?

     What are those tomes you refer to endlessly?

     What's this chamber we're in?

     What's the point?

     I was, as usual, striving more for INDIRECT.

     

     

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I mean, 90% (at least) of the people on this board are devout atheists, and take great pleasure in mocking any sort of religious faith/spirituality. I feel like that's a separate topic from religious propaganda disguised as scientific literature, which is worthy of mockery IMO, as is almost any kind of evangelism. Including atheist evangelism.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Your point is inscrutable.

     Nice. That's a sharp blade, She-Warrior of Eris.

     What's that medallion around your neck?

     What are those tomes you refer to endlessly?

     What's this chamber we're in?

     What's the point?

     I was, as usual, striving more for INDIRECT.

But it WAS. I am not the least blunt person you know, am I? Sometimes I need a less indirect route to the point. Refer to my previous post for my thoughts on this topic.

I feel like this subject could use more exploration in its own thread. As much as I like making fun of people for things I do or don't believe in, I also don't like the idea of Discordianism turning into Pastafarianism.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Sometimes the tongue in my cheek interferes with my communication skills.

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Your point is inscrutable.

     Nice. That's a sharp blade, She-Warrior of Eris.

     What's that medallion around your neck?

     What are those tomes you refer to endlessly?

     What's this chamber we're in?

     What's the point?

     I was, as usual, striving more for INDIRECT.

But it WAS. I am not the least blunt person you know, am I? Sometimes I need a less indirect route to the point. Refer to my previous post for my thoughts on this topic.

    Oh, that ONE where you rave bloody death shit wielding a butcher's knife and blow torch?

    I'll think Hemingway from now on... Well, maybe haiku with just a little cut-up method thrown in.

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

Sometimes the tongue in my cheek interferes with my communication skills.

I'll refrain from all of the body part and orifice thoughts this statement leads my mind to...

[Requia ☣]

"Irreducibly complex" is an Intelligent Design code word.  It roughly means, we don't know how this system came into existence therefore a magic sky fairy did it.  It's a really really complicated argument from ignorance. 

Irreducible complexity is a actually perfectly valid concept, involving something that cannot possibly have evolved because mutation could not have led to it.

That there is a complete lack of examples of irreducibly complex changes, illustrates just how strong the current model is.

[Kai]

"Irreducibly complex" is an Intelligent Design code word.  It roughly means, we don't know how this system came into existence therefore a magic sky fairy did it.  It's a really really complicated argument from ignorance. 

Irreducible complexity is a actually perfectly valid concept, involving something that cannot possibly have evolved because mutation could not have led to it.

That there is a complete lack of examples of irreducibly complex changes, illustrates just how strong the current model is.

Yeah, which is the crux of it. The things they usually cite, like wings, eyes, hearts, the human brain, and sometimes even the flagellar apparatus (which if there is any candidate for a "irreducably complex" organ, that would be it) but there is always some well explainable trail of common ancestors and related taxa and /genetic evidence/ that show a clear path towards each organ. Darwin struggled with this and wrote the greater portion of a chapter in On the Origin addressing this particular issue. He was able to provide a pathway for the evolution of the vertebrate eye without any knowlege of the mechanism.

It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye to a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power always intently watching each slight accidental alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully selecting each alteration which, under varied circumstances, may in any way, or in any degree, tend to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; and each to be preserved till a better be produced, and then the old ones to be destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for millions on millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?

Darwin even went so far as to suggest the deep homology of the Arthropod, Molluskan and Vertebrate eyes we now know is true with genetic evidence.

[Iason Ouabache]

Speaking of the irreducably complexity of the flagellum:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irVqVKdiohE