Why didn't I ever hear anything about ID in Europe?

[bigfatron]

it's just started in America so it will take time to spread to Europe. There already a few in Europe looking into intelligent design. There's a few in Italy who starting to support ID. ID isn't creationists. ID has already been a part of Science so it nothing new but when some scientist use it in biology then the politcal war started. Behe is one ID who accepts almost everything in the Theory of evolution including universal common descent.
Behe and Dawkins both agree there design in biology. Where they differ is Dawkins sees design as an illusion while Behe accepted it as real design thus intelligent design. But all agree Darwinism mechanics (natural selection/mutation) can not produce the complex structures find in biology today. So it because we now know more than those in the 19th century is why more scientists are begining to question Darwinism.

Since ID is based on recent knowledge of genetics and cells structures it will take time to change from just an idea to a full grown theory. There is still many political battles has to be fought and won before more funds will go to more research into ID.

Since you say ID is a scientific theory, it will therefore make testable predictions that can be verified or disproved.

Can you point me toward ONE verifiable prediction that has been made by ID proponents? I don't care if they have been actually been verified or not, even an unvalidated prediction would help, since I can't find any at all.

If, as I strongly suspect, there are no testable predictions made as a result of ID then IT IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC THORY. At best it is just speculation.

At worst it is simply a primitive appeal to the supernatural - 'we don't understand how this happens so we assume god did it'. Eventually it turned out god didn't pull the sun in a chariot, part seas, impregnate women all over the place, generate thunder and cause the Nile to flood. I'm fairly confident that we'll find god didn't spend the last few million years tinkering with our DNA either.

 

[Markus6]

@ Smidlee and big fatron:

Please, Please pretty Please with sugar on top, don't turn this into another ID/evolution debate.

It's all been said before and the OP really didn't want to go down this path. There's plenty of threads around if you want to get this stuff of your chest.

 

[Verbose]

I'd say the European lack of interest in religion is to a great extent an effect of the fact that religion historically has NOT been a matter of personal preference but one regulated by goverment.

This is what you got with the peace of Westphalia in 1648; the sovereign princes were each allowed to chose what form of faith would apply in their states. (And then there was France with its thorny problem what to do with the hugenotts for most of the 17th c.)
The situation left the common people under a dual control of church and state acting in concert. Especially in the protestant countries.
I think it can be argued that this kind of control and compulsion historically hasn't exactly prepared Europeans for being wonderfully pious. Religious dissenters that were around got into trouble, but quite a lot of them transferred to the US where they could have whatever beliefs they wanted since the US from its inception has adhered to the separation of church and state. At times at least, religion seems to be an inherited personal pet-project for many Americans. (A major factor in personal identity, unlike in Europe where it has mostly never been a matter of personal preference or choice.)

It may also be significant that the US was a British colony.

In all matters of science, religion and evolution the kind of biblical literalism we are dealing with has since the early 19th c. been vieweed as a PARTICULARY British/American thing.
German early 19th c. Naturphilosophen with complex ideas about how all things strive to realise their full potential (progress), changing and mutating, were often men of the cloth (and idealists to a man, unlike the materialist Darwin).
There was any number of French transformists around prior to Darwin with complex ideas about progressive transformation of species. (They didn't have much in the way of an explanatory mechanism though.)
And in all of continental Europe 19th c. people frequently commented on the down right weirdness of the biblical literalism of the British and their American cousins.

As for ID, to me it looks suspiciously like some of the alternatives to random, materialistic Darwinian evolution that was proposed already in the 19th c. (Orthogenesis, pre-programmed evolution for example). And again, these possibilities were mostly suggested and survived the longest within science in the US. From what I hear they may still do so, but Europe has never shown much interest outside the circles of the peripheral religious groups.

 

[bigfatron]

@ Smidlee and big fatron:

It's all been said before and the OP really didn't want to go down this path. There's plenty of threads around if you want to get this stuff of your chest.

Apologies, you're right.

On topic, it's not taught in UK schools or mentioned here because it is a speculative explanation not founded in reality - like UFOs or astrology - rather than a science.

 

[bathsheba666]

It may also be significant that the US was a British colony.

In all matters of science, religion and evolution the kind of biblical literalism we are dealing with has since the early 19th c. been vieweed as a PARTICULARY British/American thing.

I hadn't realised this was a european perspective.

I always assumed that the Pilgrims were exactly the kind of religious looney who found the atmosphere in England too rational for them, and left.
It was with some shock that I realised from some recent postings that they apparently bred "successfully".

(This is a comment on the execution, not the advisability, of this endeavour.)

 

[The Last Conformist]

As for ID, to me it looks suspiciously like some of the alternatives to random, materialistic Darwinian evolution that was proposed already in the 19th c. (Orthogenesis, pre-programmed evolution for example).

While similar in motivation, ID isn't much like them in approach; they tried to present actual alternatives, while ID amounts to little more than an argument from incredulity.

(Yeah, there's Dembski's mathematical claims, but they too do not amount to an alternative explanation, only a rejection of current ones, and they don't hold water anyway. Seeing he's got a PhD in maths, some of his non sequiturs are quite stunning.)

 

[Rik Meleet]

Why isn't it taught in Europe ?

Perhaps because there isn't much in it that can be taught. What is there to learn from "There is a theory that creatures are what they are because some unidentified intelligent something designed them that way intelligently", followed by numerous examples on why it must be true ???

Let me ask you back: why should it be taught (not limiting this to Europe only) ??

 

[soul_warrior]

My take:

Europe went through its Christian-taliban stage early (inquisitions, crusades, etc.) and emerged with collective opinion that religion is nice for pageantry, cultural history, and beautiful tourist attractions - but that's about it. Any more than that seems to cause trouble. Despite having the greatest population of Christians in the world, most Europeans don't go to church every week and religion doesn't tend to factor into their everyday lives. Interestingly, as Europe has become less religious, they've also become more humanistic, tolerant and less xenophobic.

id agree with most of what you said, but i think you forgot the "religion wars" that swept through Europe in the 16th century.
when one half of europe (protestant) tried to kill off the other catholic half.
the result was a VERY natural uneasiness regarding ALL forms of religion.

so ALL of europe went either atheist, or mini-religious.
ofcourse religion stayed a major theme in Europe, but having hated other religions (muslim, jew or misc,) AND other fellow christians has led to a decline in religious numbers.
that in turn led to less power to the church,
which in turn leads us towards the VACUUM filling role of science.
people NEED to believe in SOMETHING.

in the US, OTH, the first emigrants were religious refugees (be it quaker, catholic, protestant or whatever) that wanted a place where they could worship GOD in thier OWN way, without being disturbed.
this led to the birth of a country of highly religious people.

since FAITH is all about faith in the teaching of god, as written by the "holy book", they discourage criticism.

let the US go through a few decades of religious riots on a grand scale, and i can ASSURE you that they will NOT teach ID in schools, but WILL teach about DARWIN.

the jews, OTH, have been purged, and as a result have either stayed fanatically religious (still teaching that the world is 5900+ years old) or gone atheist (trusting darwin).

which leads me to the conculsion that the higher your religious faith, the less you are willing to accept changes in thinking.

 

[soul_warrior]

Let me ask you back: why should it be taught (not limiting this to Europe only) ??

it should be taught as an exercise in having multiple ideas of how the world came to be.
in general i think that knowing as many different views on any subject is better than not knowing anything but ONE "truth"
there is NO ONE TRUTH.

emphasis, in education programs, should be placed on what the people (via the board of education, or whatever) believe to be more useful.
AND give teaching time to rival theories aswell.
that way the pupil will have atleast heard of ID.
then its HIS\HER choice which one s\he prefer.

 

[Rik Meleet]

it should be taught as an exercise in having multiple ideas of how the world came to be. in general i think that knowing as many different views on any subject is better than not knowing anything but ONE "truth" there is NO ONE TRUTH.

emphasis, in education programs, should be placed on what the people (via the board of education, or whatever) believe to be more useful. AND give teaching time to rival theories aswell. that way the pupil will have atleast heard of ID. then its HIS\HER choice which one s\he prefer.

This is maybe another reason it isn't so big in Europe. I don't think the principle of "what the people believe" takes priority over "what is closest to the truth" in European educational systems. (European) Education-principles are to outline what children need to have knowledge of, not what they should believe to be true. My physics- math- chemistry- etc. teachers always told us to not accept it because they told us it was true, but to verify if it was correct. And if my teachers and I got different results we were invited to discuss the outcome + analyse why we got different results. That principle is something different than "believe what you want and adjust the outcome accordingly".

And I do fiercely disagree with your opinion that "there is NO ONE TRUTH."

 

[Masquerouge]

emphasis, in education programs, should be placed on what the people (via the board of education, or whatever) believe to be more useful.
AND give teaching time to rival theories aswell.
that way the pupil will have atleast heard of ID.
then its HIS\HER choice which one s\he prefer.

Exactly why ID will never make it in France at least (but I suspect it's the same in other Europeans country) : education programs are NEVER made by people, they are made by the government. Frankly, education is too important an asset to a country's future not to be run by your loony neighbour.

 

[MCdread]

My ex-girlfriend didn't want to believe at first when I told her about this debates here and how widespread they were in America. I also introduced the subject to a friend of mine, who is deeply involved in religious groups activities (catholic) and she was in shock to know about it, and even said those people were interpreting religion and the christian faith through a completely flawed angle. My father subscribes a small newspaper, published by the local parish (sp?), and it recently had an article about faith and science, and it refered to the theory of evolution as a fact, describing the Genesis tale as a myth reflecting the scientific ignorance normal of a pre-scientific society. The priests I know never put this view in question either.
Just a few examples of my experience over here. The reasons are several. First of all, this is a catholic country, a Church that accepts the scientific facts behind evolution, and that most importantly has a tradition of complementing the Bible narratives with other doccuments and interpretation written over the centuries. catholics are not particulary interested in using the Bible to extract historical tales, but the spiritual teachings and meaning of the text, and regards most of it as a metaphorical recollection of a higher truth (at least that's what they claim in the more enlightened circles, popular religion is of course much different, with supersticious and paganistic links all over the place).

Concerning northern Europe, I don't have an in loco experience, but I guess that such groups are viewed as weird and emmigrated to America in the XIX century, where they could build their idea of social order more easily in a freer environment from the personal liberties point of view and with vast and unpopulated lands.

 

[MCdread]

it should be taught as an exercise in having multiple ideas of how the world came to be.
in general i think that knowing as many different views on any subject is better than not knowing anything but ONE "truth"
there is NO ONE TRUTH.

emphasis, in education programs, should be placed on what the people (via the board of education, or whatever) believe to be more useful.
AND give teaching time to rival theories aswell.
that way the pupil will have atleast heard of ID.
then its HIS\HER choice which one s\he prefer.

That will never happen here, at least not in a conceivable time. It is the Ministery of Education that defines the school programs all over the country. Private schools are only a very minor part of the education system, and of those only a small part are linked with a religious confession. And yet of those, that link will mostly be with the Catholic Church that does not subscribe Creationism as understood in America. Furthermore, even those schools still have to comply with the program defined by the Public Authorities.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

I'm asking myself the exact same question... In my Quebecer Brain, its not conceivable that some people still argue about Intelligent design. It makes as much sense as arguing about the existence of leprechauns at the end of the rainbow.

No kidding.

 

[classical_hero]

The real reason why most people do not want to even think the ID is possible, because it will reveal that their thinking has been wrong right from the start. If ID does exist, then there must be someone behind the design, and that is not a thought that will sit well with too many people.

Moderator Action: Very interesting, but not really the topic of the thread. Please use designated "ID - Evo - Crea" threads for this and keep this thread on the topic of "Why didn't I ever hear anything about ID in Europe?". - Rik

 

[MamboJoel]

it should be taught as an exercise in having multiple ideas of how the world came to be.
in general i think that knowing as many different views on any subject is better than not knowing anything but ONE "truth"
there is NO ONE TRUTH.

emphasis, in education programs, should be placed on what the people (via the board of education, or whatever) believe to be more useful.
AND give teaching time to rival theories aswell.
that way the pupil will have atleast heard of ID.
then its HIS\HER choice which one s\he prefer.

"I think we can all look forward to the time when these three theories are given equal time in our science classrooms across the country, and eventually the world; One third time for Intelligent Design, one third time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, and one third time for logical conjecture based on overwhelming observable evidence"

http://www.venganza.org/

ID, will not cross atlantic

 

[MamboJoel]

LOL !

From the same site :

"THE ONTOLOGICAL ARGUMENT FOR FSM

P1. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a being which has every perfection.
P2. Existence is a perfection.
C. Therefore, the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists."

 

[Ayatollah So]

I'd say the European lack of interest in religion is to a great extent an effect of the fact that religion historically has NOT been a matter of personal preference but one regulated by goverment.

Which suggests that if the American religious right ever gets its way, and their religion becomes endorsed by and entangled with the government, religion will wane in genuine devotion here, as in Europe.

Now that's poetic justice

 

[The Last Conformist]

Which suggests that if the American religious right ever gets its way, and their religion becomes endorsed by and entangled with the government, religion will wane in genuine devotion here, as in Europe.

Now that's poetic justice

Well, arguably, that what's happening in Iran.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

Please, Please pretty Please with sugar on top, don't turn this into another ID/evolution debate. It's pointless.
I want to know why there is no such debate in Europe and the rest of the world? The only people who seriously believe in some sort of "scientific"-Creationism(don't know how to call it) are AFAIK some Muslims in Turkey and South-East Asia, some orthodox Jews and some Americans.
I didn't even know that there were people in Western countries who don't believe in the Theory of Evolution. I thought that debate belonged to the 19th century before I started visiting American Forums like this one.

If I could hazard a guess, I'd say it is because the religious right in the US has far more political clout than in Europe, where people (rightly) are suspicious of anything with religious overtones.