“Intelligent design” is worse than merely being wrong

Greetings.

Jewish date:  3 ’Adhar 5770 (Parashath Terumah).

Today’s holidays:  Ash Wednesday (day 1 of Lent; Roman Catholicism), Feast of Giordano Bruno the Martyr (Thelema).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Heart Disease and Stroke. You’re the Cure.”

Topic 1:  More anti-Semitism (yes, that issue is not going away anytime soon, unfortunately):  “UN's Double Standard for Arab Refugees” (according to the definition for refugees used anywhere besides Israel, extremely few of the stateless Arabs, whether in Israel or claiming connection with it, qualify as refugees), “'EU aid funds PA incitement'” (bad idea if they really want peace), and the Dry Bones cartoon “And Then? (2004)” (everyone who does not think that Israel will have to bomb Iran’s nuclear program back to square one because no other country will be willing to do the job, despite international criticism, stand on your heads).

Topic 2:  “The End of Intelligent Design?”:  This article deals with what is wrong with the so-called “intelligent design” (ID) movement, not merely as “intelligent design” being a euphemism for creationism.  Correctly noted is that as science ID is a total failure, having produced zero results, all the while in effect claiming that science is incompetent to explain our world.  This is a very dangerous thing to do, as science has been very successful at understanding how our universe works; naturally, real scientists are strongly opposed to ID.  Another consequence of ID is to pit religion and science against each other.  This makes it easier for anti-religious atheists to pretend that science actually supports their beliefs, causes a ton of needless enmity, and anyone who is both pro-science and pro-religion is likely to get caught in the crossfire.  In short, ID is worse than merely being wrong.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor:  “after a long and tiring day of soulsnatching”:


Peace.

Aaron