Ethics and integrity in science

[Dust and Ashes]

First, let me state that this is not an attack on evolution or science. I myself am a TE (as far as I worry about origins, which isn't far) so I am in no way attacking evolution or the scientific method.

That said, I can remember when I first came to CF as a blazing creationist determined to set all you misguided Darwinists straight and I got my rear handed to me more than once before I finally started looking at things with a clear head. Facts are facts, truth is truth and that's that.

One thing that really bugs me though is how the scientific "world" seems to be viewed as some transcendent thing that is beyond corruption with unquestioned integrity. One of the points that I always tried to make was the fact that many atheistic evolutionists clearly have an agenda. Yet whenever I see someone bring this up, they are generally treated as if they are attacking evolution itself.

Look at the hostility among the scientific community, in general, towards the Intelligent Design movement. ID scientists tend to be lumped in with creationists and face ridicule for believing in God regardless of how compelling their evidence is. Look at what Dr. Stephen Meyer faced for publishing a peer reviewed article that defended ID.

It is clear that the general view of the scientific community is an atheistic one and anyone who questions the "dogmas" of atheism is quickly "excommunicated." Now, I figure right here that someone will throw out the usual knee-jerk question have I interviewed every scientist in the world to determine if they are atheist. No, I haven't but since my point is not in conflict with evolution or the scientific method, but rather the doctrinal positions held by the scientific community by and large (atheism) there is no need to close ranks with the atheistic evolutionists for the sake of protecting evolution.

I'm too tired to draw this out and the words are starting to run together so I aplogize for the rambling and unclear nature of this post. I just wanted to say that I find it disturbing that people who believe in God would close ranks with and defend people who so disdain them for that very belief.

An atheist's scientific method may be impeccable, ingenious even, but if he refuses to accept the implications of evidence for doctrinal reasons, he is no different than the creationists he so despises.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

First, I agree that the attempts of scientism and materialism to hijack science are as bad as the attempts by creationism because they are both attempting to force science to answer questions that it cannot answer.

That said, I haven't seen any excommunication of theists from the scientific community. For the most, scientists couldn't care less about religious beliefs. The quality of the person's scientific work is far more important.

 

[Dust and Ashes]

First, I agree that the attempts of scientism and materialism to hijack science are as bad as the attempts by creationism because they are both attempting to force science to answer questions that it cannot answer.

That said, I haven't seen any excommunication of theists from the scientific community. For the most, scientists couldn't care less about religious beliefs. The quality of the person's scientific work is far more important.

Thanks for seeing through my generalizations to the point of my post. I should probably ammend my post to refer the scientific fields most directly related to the study of origins where the quality of one's science may be less important than the implications depending on how you interpret the evidence.

Excommunication may have been too strong a term (or maybe not) but theists certainly do face ridicule and their science is called into question by some because they are theists. I think the ID movement is facing resistance purely for religious reasons. The staunchly evangelical atheists are just defending their faith. I know the "ideal" seems to be to completely extricate the concept of God from science because science can't answer metaphysical questions but I think that is just playing by the atheists' rules in order to placate them.

If there is a God who created the universe ex nihilo, a supreme Intelligence that designed it all, then won't the evidence support that? Why detach ourselves from the facts and claim that science can't demonstrate that God did things He clearly did, simply to placate those who refuse to believe it? The argument seems to be that evolution is evolution and the cause doesn't matter. It seems to me that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Two scientists observe the same evidence. This species manifested these changes over time in response to this other condition. One sees it as a random, godless occurrence and the other sees it as a guided occurrence. Two completely different conclusions from the same evidence yet it is overlooked because what matters is the observation itself.

I guess what bothers me is that we are coming to a point where the complexity and order in life and the universe clearly demonstrate that it is the result of a supreme Intelligence. Those who categorically deny the possibility that life is the result of ID are/will be incapable of correctly interpreting any evidence that supports ID, which I believe it all does since I am a TE. The implications of scientific discoveries can't be ignored so something will have to give and I wonder how those who believe in God will fare when they are inevitably placed at odds with those whose faith declares that there is no God.

 

[gluadys]

Excommunication may have been too strong a term (or maybe not) but theists certainly do face ridicule and their science is called into question by some because they are theists. I think the ID movement is facing resistance purely for religious reasons. The staunchly evangelical atheists are just defending their faith. I know the "ideal" seems to be to completely extricate the concept of God from science because science can't answer metaphysical questions but I think that is just playing by the atheists' rules in order to placate them.

It is important to distinguish between science and scientists. Science is a body of accumulated knowledge and hypotheses about the natural world. In and of itself, science makes no metaphyisical statements and persecutes no one. It is also, I hasten to add, not dogmatic, not written in stone, not 100% proven, not absolute in any sense, but fluid, dynamic and changing as new information is discovered, new hypotheses tested.

Scientists, on the other hand, are human beings with all the faults of human beings. And scientists themselves tend to characterize scientists as particularly prone to egotism. It is just as difficult for scientists as for the rest of us to separate our concepts into "purely scientific " ideas and "personal philosophy". We all tend to take our world-view as a whole, not parcel it out into separate mental file folders. So scientists, both as individuals and as "the scientific community" do exert peer pressure. The "scientific community" is one of the institutions of modern society. It is one of the Powers of which Walter Wink writes in The Powers that Be. So our attitude towards it must be one of caution, recognizing that while it is a good, useful and necessary institution/Power, it is also, like all human institutions, a fallen Power which needs to be called back to its proper vocation.

That said, I don't know of any case, including Stephen Meyer, where a scientist has been ridiculed for being a theist. The Rev. Bob Bakker is one of the most honoured scientists in the field of paleontology today because of his mastery of research into dinosaurs. Is this persecution? What about other Christian biologists working in fields related to evolution? Where is the evidence of persecution? Why is it inconceivable to suspect that Meyer faced harsh criticism and dismissal of his ideas, not because he believes in God, but because his work is scientifically shoddy?

I have personally read his paper as well as another more comprehensive one which he wrote with a colleague. I would be happy to discuss its shortcomings with anyone who is interested.

I disagree that the "ideal" is to completely extricate the concept of God from science. The ideal is to explore the natural world and to find, wherever possible, a natural explanation of the observations we make of nature.

Now what makes this an "atheist" agenda? I suggest that many Christians have unwittingly accepted a dictum which is atheist in origin. That is the dictum that nature excludes God and therefore a natural explanation of anything excludes God.

This, I believe, is where Christians need to take a stand against atheism. Nature does not exclude God. God is the creator and user and sustainer of natural process. Do we assume that because we understand, far more fully than the Psalmist, the natural process of human reproduction, that we are no longer created by God? Surely not! Rather we recognize the natural processes of meiosis and fertilization and embryonic development as a scientific description of how God created us.

I most firmly believe that Christians need to take a much more public stand here: nature is God's creation, and every process of nature is God's creation and totally dependant on God for its being and operation. We need to protest every instance in which "nature" is set up in opposition to "God". Nature is not an alternative to God. Nature is a creature of God.

I think this is something that all Christians can agree on, no matter what our thoughts are on the particularities of origins. And I think it would do wonders for the debate if all Christians began to speak with one voice on this point. There would be far less scope for prominent atheists to dominate the public discourse on science, if Christians, all across the theological spectrum, were to agree, and to speak up, in support of the concept that nature is an expression of God's action, not an alternate explanation of how nature works.

As long as there are Christians who see nature as excluding God, they give aid and comfort to the enemy, by accepting their rules of the road.

If there is a God who created the universe ex nihilo, a supreme Intelligence that designed it all, then won't the evidence support that?

No. The closest that science can come to identifying an intelligent designer is to say "we currently have no natural explanation for this phenomenon." It is not the role of science to engage in metaphysical discussion of possible super-natural explanations.

And, again, this misses the point. The natural explanation of any phenomenon is also evidence of a designer, since, as Christians, we do not (should not) accept the dictum that nature is an alternate/opposite to God. The scientific description of nature is a scientific description of God's activity in the natural world. There is no conclusive way to delineate scientifically between God's action in and through nature and God's miraculous actions. In fact, in many situations, what we call miraculous may simply be God's action in and through natural processes which we cannot yet describe scientifically.

That is why we cannot prejudge that some of the very complex designs we see in nature had to be produced outside the realm of the natural order. We have expanded our knowledge of the natural order by many magnitudes over that of previous generations, but we are kidding ourselves if we think we truly understand more than a small fraction of the whole.

Two scientists observe the same evidence. This species manifested these changes over time in response to this other condition. One sees it as a random, godless occurrence and the other sees it as a guided occurrence. Two completely different conclusions from the same evidence yet it is overlooked because what matters is the observation itself.

Note that the scientific conclusion is "this species manifested these changes over time in response to this other condition." We need to be clear that this is where science ends. Both of the other conclusions are metaphysical. And I am the first to agree that the conclusion that evolution occurred as a random godless occurrence should never be tolerated in scientific textbooks at any level--even post-graduate.

But be careful about associating "random" with "godless". That implies that God never uses random processes, or at least apparently random processes. But God does use the thoroughly random process of independant chromosome assortment in meiosis to assure that every human will be a unique individual. (And the same applies to all other species which reproduce sexually.) If God actually directs the formation of each egg and each sperm to produce each individual, that direction is not apparent to biologists. The same can be said about many other natural events. There may be a guiding hand that determines every single mutation, or at least some key ones, and every single chance that changes the direction of selection pressure such as by directing a meteor to the earth at a particular moment, or decreeing an ice age, or an earthquake.

No one can say whether or not such random events are absolutely random or a response to God's guidance of events. So just as we must stand against the idea that "natural" excludes God, we must also stand against the idea that "random" excludes God.

All "random" means is that we are limited to making statistical predictions about events, and cannot predict when this event will occur in a particular atom. Just like insurance companies can make very accurate statistical predictions, but cannot predict which of their clients will have an accident at 2:00 pm this Wednesday. Just like meterologists can predict fairly accurately that there will be thunderstorms over a certain region in a certain time frame, but cannot predict that a particular bolt of lightning will strike a particular tree.

I guess what bothers me is that we are coming to a point where the complexity and order in life and the universe clearly demonstrate that it is the result of a supreme Intelligence. Those who categorically deny the possibility that life is the result of ID are/will be incapable of correctly interpreting any evidence that supports ID, which I believe it all does since I am a TE.

I repeat what I said in another post. We need to discriminate between intelligent design and Intelligent Design a la Discovery Institute. Theistic evolution is, by definition, an affirmation of intelligent design. But that does not mean that TEs will subscribe to Behe's or Dembski's or Meyer's version of Intelligent Design. Some may, but many won't, and you can count me among the one's who won't. I think we need to challenge the Discovery Institute camp on why they reject theistic evolution as intelligent design. Why do they feel they need to come up with an alternative to natural selection as the primary source of design in nature? Especially as they offer no alternate mechanism of design.

Until someone in the ID camp shows me how a biological design can be transformed from a mental concept to a physical reality without natural selection, I will remain skeptical of their claims.

The implications of scientific discoveries can't be ignored so something will have to give and I wonder how those who believe in God will fare when they are inevitably placed at odds with those whose faith declares that there is no God.

There is nothing new about this. We do as we have always done and declare our faith: "I believe in one God, the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible....."

We affirm that no implication of science makes our faith untenable. Rather the wondrous world opened up to us by science is all the more reason to praise its Creator.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Thanks for seeing through my generalizations to the point of my post. I should probably ammend my post to refer the scientific fields most directly related to the study of origins where the quality of one's science may be less important than the implications depending on how you interpret the evidence.

I admit that my experience is more with physics than biology.

Excommunication may have been too strong a term (or maybe not) but theists certainly do face ridicule and their science is called into question by some because they are theists. I think the ID movement is facing resistance purely for religious reasons. The staunchly evangelical atheists are just defending their faith. I know the "ideal" seems to be to completely extricate the concept of God from science because science can't answer metaphysical questions but I think that is just playing by the atheists' rules in order to placate them.

The resistance to ID is not purely religious. Much of the resistance is due to the usually religious nature of the push to accept ID. When Bush or Santorum speak of the "holes in evolution," they probably cannot explain what these holes are or point to any research that reveals these holes.

Methodological materialism is an essential part of science. We cannot test God. We cannot create a control group where God does not exist.

If there is a God who created the universe ex nihilo, a supreme Intelligence that designed it all, then won't the evidence support that? Why detach ourselves from the facts and claim that science can't demonstrate that God did things He clearly did, simply to placate those who refuse to believe it? The argument seems to be that evolution is evolution and the cause doesn't matter. It seems to me that nothing could be farther from the truth.

If there is a God who created the universe ex nihilio, the evidence would not contradict that. However, it is entirely possible for God to work subtlely, such that it is not definitively distinguishable from a materialistic universe.

The cause matters but not to evolution. Evolution doesn't care what created life in the first place. It concerns what happens once life is around. It is the same as how projectile motion doesn't care what flung the object into the air; it only cares about the initial condition.

Two scientists observe the same evidence. This species manifested these changes over time in response to this other condition. One sees it as a random, godless occurrence and the other sees it as a guided occurrence. Two completely different conclusions from the same evidence yet it is overlooked because what matters is the observation itself.

I guess what bothers me is that we are coming to a point where the complexity and order in life and the universe clearly demonstrate that it is the result of a supreme Intelligence. Those who categorically deny the possibility that life is the result of ID are/will be incapable of correctly interpreting any evidence that supports ID, which I believe it all does since I am a TE. The implications of scientific discoveries can't be ignored so something will have to give and I wonder how those who believe in God will fare when they are inevitably placed at odds with those whose faith declares that there is no God.

The complexity and order in life and the universe do not clearly demonstrate a Creator. The values of basic constants appear fortuitously balanced for us to be able to exist, but any universe where we could exist to observe them would be balanced that way. As to life, evolutionary mechanisms are capable of creating complexity without the direct intervention of God. Part of ID's problem with getting respect from the scientific community is that it finds some complex system, declare it irreducibly complex through an argument from incredulity, and then take advantage of the fact that it takes more time to demonstrate a pathway of evolution than it does to find something that hasn't yet been explained. Cosider Behe's use of the bacterial flagellum.

 

[Dust and Ashes]

Thanks for the wonderful, informative responses. I didn't realize that ID was opposed to TE but rather thought that TE was the method ID proposed. I guess I should do a little research before I go flaunting my ignorance all over the place. Please forgive me.

 

[Smidlee]

Thanks for the wonderful, informative responses. I didn't realize that ID was opposed to TE but rather thought that TE was the method ID proposed. I guess I should do a little research before I go flaunting my ignorance all over the place. Please forgive me.

Actually you are more on target than you think.(all thoughout history, science has always been this way with any new ideas) ID today isn't the same as in William Paley's day (nor like Darwin's) which is why Behe named his book Darwin's Black Box. We learning more and more about the very bricks (proteins) that builds life. Today's ID isn't saying "we can't explain it" is more like "Wow, that's looks like a very complex motor"or "Look at all those proteins work together to detect light" again "that's amazing!!! all the proteins are switched on at just the right time." . In anothers words, ID is no longer in the dark looking at a black wall anymore but now with bright lights shining which clearly are seeings some amazing things happening on a bio-chemist level. So it's not that just "There's holes in evolution" but more like "There's holes in evolution and we found cells armed with AK-47s and missle launchers with smoke coming out them. " It's knowledge itself putting holes in this theory.
Stepen Meyer was attack becuase of his belief (not necessary becuase his a christian) even though he's not ID in his statement he himself see Darwinism has become a dogma and the fact ID will have to be face sometime. So it ok to be a christian in science as long as you believe in Darwinism.

evolutionist uses appearances as evidence to support their theory.
Example Evolutionist uses appearance of fossils to claim man and ape had a common ancestor. This is something they love to claim as fact but when you look at the hard evidence you realize everything is based on similarities either of bones or DNA. Yet this similarities could be cause of a common design as well. So there you can't really prove that man and ape had a common ancestor just like you can't prove the existance of God by science. You got have faith to accept this as a fact. Also it's very possible there could have been an ape-like species in the past that looks more like man than the modern day chimp yet not at all related to man or ape.

ID also uses appearance to point somethings in nature looks created (made) by intelligent design. Just like evolutionist compare man & apes to make their claims , ID compare human made objects & complex structures find on the bio-chemist level of a cell. Also ID see computers that runs on "information" (software) then sees cells also has "information" which it run on. Of course "information" of a PC and cells are hard to see when looking at indivdual parts (of DNA or individual bytes) yet on the grand scale all those little parts of the code all up to do amazing complex tasks.

So to me there's clearly a double standard in science now that ID now has ammo. While Evolutionist love to use appearance to support their views they refuse for allow ID to use appearance to support thiers.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Thanks for the wonderful, informative responses. I didn't realize that ID was opposed to TE but rather thought that TE was the method ID proposed. I guess I should do a little research before I go flaunting my ignorance all over the place. Please forgive me.

I had the same problem. Intelligent design sounded like a reasonable description of what I believed until I discovered that others had already taken the phrase.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

As far as I can see, ID is using the same arguement as Paley except that instead of marvelling at the complexity of the eye they marvel at the complexity of organelles.

 

[notto]

This is something they love to claim as fact but when you look at the hard evidence you realize everything is based on similarities either of bones or DNA.

Can you point us the the peer reviewed material you looked at to come to this conclusion? What studies are you referrring to? What books have you read?

Have you read this?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Far more than 'similarities' is discussed here. Your statement is without merit.

 

[gluadys]

Actually you are more on target than you think.(all thoughout history, science has always been this way with any new ideas) ID today isn't the same as in William Paley's day (nor like Darwin's) which is why Behe named his book Darwin's Black Box. We learning more and more about the very bricks (proteins) that builds life. Today's ID isn't saying "we can't explain it" is more like "Wow, that's looks like a very complex motor"or "Look at all those proteins work together to detect light" again "that's amazing!!! all the proteins are switched on at just the right time."

I don't see the difference between saying "We can't explain it." and "Wow, isn't that amazing, and we can't explain it!" It is still an argument from incredulity. It assumes that because we can't explain it today, we never will be able to explain it. But the bio-chemists are coming up with plausible evolutionary pathways. We do know now how the blood-clotting sequence could have evolved gradually, for one.

The study of evolution at the molecular level is very new science. There is a lot to explore and it will take time to sort out all the data.

And the point is still being missed that we do not need ID to affirm God's creative action. Natural, evolutionary pathways do not exclude God's activity. They describe God's activity in nature. Natural processes are not alternatives to divine activity. They are divine activity.

In anothers words, ID is no longer in the dark looking at a black wall anymore but now with bright lights shining which clearly are seeings some amazing things happening on a bio-chemist level. So it's not that just "There's holes in evolution" but more like "There's holes in evolution and we found cells armed with AK-47s and missle launchers with smoke coming out them. " It's knowledge itself putting holes in this theory.

But it has not succeeded in putting any holes in the theory of evolution. All it has done is point to some amazing examples of complexity in nature--especially bio-chemical complexity. But complexity as an argument against evolution is a very old argument. New examples of complexity don't add anything to the argument.

Stepen Meyer was attack becuase of his belief (not necessary becuase his a christian) even though he's not ID in his statement he himself see Darwinism has become a dogma and the fact ID will have to be face sometime. So it ok to be a christian in science as long as you believe in Darwinism.

And what do you mean by "Darwinism" in this paragraph?

evolutionist uses appearances as evidence to support their theory.
Example Evolutionist uses appearance of fossils to claim man and ape had a common ancestor. This is something they love to claim as fact but when you look at the hard evidence you realize everything is based on similarities either of bones or DNA. Yet this similarities could be cause of a common design as well.

Well, it could and it couldn't. That's the problem with common design. It does not predict the pattern of similarities we see. Saying that evolution looks for similarities, is a simplification. The theory of evolution does more than predict similarities. It predicts a specific pattern of similarities. Common design predicts similarities, but does not predict a specific pattern of similarities. Any pattern of similarities would do for common design. But only one specific pattern of similarities will be produced by evolution. And that is the pattern we find in nature.

If one is not going to accept this as evidence favoring evolution, one then needs to ask why the designer, out of all the possible patterns of similarity, chose the only one that is consistent with evolution. And consistently chose it in preference to what appear to be more rational ways of re-using design patterns.

So there you can't really prove that man and ape had a common ancestor just like you can't prove the existance of God by science. You got have faith to accept this as a fact. Also it's very possible there could have been an ape-like species in the past that looks more like man than the modern day chimp yet not at all related to man or ape.

1. What fossil find are you referring to?
2. Humans are apes.
3. What makes you think this would be a problem for evolution?
4. Science does not rest on proof. It rests on evidence. It takes no faith to make logical inferences from observations and test them against the evidence.

ID also uses appearance to point somethings in nature looks created (made) by intelligent design. Just like evolutionist compare man & apes to make their claims , ID compare human made objects & complex structures find on the bio-chemist level of a cell. Also ID see computers that runs on "information" (software) then sees cells also has "information" which it run on. Of course "information" of a PC and cells are hard to see when looking at indivdual parts (of DNA or individual bytes) yet on the grand scale all those little parts of the code all up to do amazing complex tasks.

But ID has not succeeded in applying its analogies from human-designed products to biological entities. It consistently avoids the fact that biological entities are self-reproducing, and self-changing over time. It has not yet found a way to ascertain design when the existence of a designer is in question. And before you ask, yes, I know what the "design filter" is. I have yet to see it successfully applied to any biological organism or feature.

So to me there's clearly a double standard in science now that ID now has ammo. While Evolutionist love to use appearance to support their views they refuse for allow ID to use appearance to support thiers.

That is not the case. Evolution, as noted above, does not just look for similarity, but for a specific pattern of similarity. The theory of evolution accounts for this pattern taxonomically, geographically and stratigraphically as well as genetically.

ID does not even specify a pattern of similarity to look for. It can't. Common design does not predict any specific pattern of similarity to look for.

Furthermore, the theory of evolution proposes specific mechanisms which produce the pattern of similarity it predicts. ID does not propose any non-evolutionary mechanism at all. We have a pretty good idea of how natural selection produces designoid features. But how does the designer arrange for his/her/its/their designs to be produced? How does the designer arrange for a retrofit of an already existing creature to equip it with a new complex feature?

Until ID can offer some explanation of how it actually works biologically, I don't see it replacing evolution any time soon.

 

[Smidlee]

I don't see the difference between saying "We can't explain it." and "Wow, isn't that amazing, and we can't explain it!" It is still an argument from incredulity. It assumes that because we can't explain it today, we never will be able to explain it. But the bio-chemists are coming up with plausible evolutionary pathways. We do know now how the blood-clotting sequence could have evolved gradually, for one.

but "We can't explain it." is now totally false. In fact we can explain down to the individual protein. Isn't not "we can't explain it" it's natural selection and mutation that can't explain it's origins." Of course evolutionist has tried some attempts to explain something like blood-clotting which there still a lot more to be desired. So I know the difference between "we can't explain it" because surely we can down the smallest detail but "we can't make it fit the evolution dogma" is the real problem. If you down the evolution dogma then there nothing more to explain.

The study of evolution at the molecular level is very new science. There is a lot to explore and it will take time to sort out all the data.

Which this is only the beginning of revealing complex structures yet we do know a lot about a few of them like the flagellum.

I realizes you are a hare-core evolutionist so you are ready to defend it againest all those who oppose. While I realize why evolutionists believe what they do yet I see the facts pointing in a different direction. This doesn't mean I always agree with YEC either yet I still haven't saw a need to put any faith in darwinism. I do agree natural-selection and even random mutation does pays a part in nature but see limits in their role in nature.

 

[gluadys]

but "We can't explain it." is now totally false. In fact we can explain down to the individual protein.

No you can't and you haven't explained it. You have described it. You can describe in detail the structure of the protein. But you have not explained how it came to be. You have presented no history of the protein. You have presented no causative mechanism of the protein, not even a theoretical one.

I grant that at the molecular level, there is often no history of particular proteins, though some progress is being made. The origin of many haemoglobins has been traced. And a mechanism for producing proteins is known and can lead to testable predictions about the history of particular proteins. Eventually, tracing the molecular history of proteins via mutation and natural selection will give us a good deal of knowledge about them.

But ID doesn't even offer a theoretical mechanism as a basis for predicting and testing the origin and history of specific proteins.

While I realize why evolutionists believe what they do yet I see the facts pointing in a different direction.

I challenge this. I don't think you see any facts pointing in a different direction. I think you see lacunae where some things are not explained to your satisfaction. But absence of sufficient evidence is not a positive fact.

Show me a fact -- a positive fact--which points in a different direction than evolution. No negative stuff like absence of transitionals (which simply ignores the many transitional fossils that do exist) or some complexity for which an explanation has not been found (ignoring those for which there is evidence).

This doesn't mean I always agree with YEC either yet I still haven't saw a need to put any faith in darwinism.

That reminds me. You didn't answer my question. What do you mean by "darwinism"? This is a serious question. I am researching which of the many meanings of "darwinism" people are referring to when they use the term. I would appreciate your contribution to this research. A short paragraph of one or two sentences is enough. And I won't debate the meaning. I just want to know what it is.

btw--whatever "darwinism" is, I have not seen any need to put faith in it either.

I do agree natural-selection and even random mutation does pays a part in nature but see limits in their role in nature.

That's a fair statement. And this is the ID stance and the creationist stance--that there are limits to mutation and natural selection. But what I want to know is where you see the limits, because I don't see them.

Actually, evolutionists do see some limits to mutation and selection. The limits set by the past history of a species. Those limits, however, seem to be different from the limits alleged by ID and creationism.