I don't know why you hoped for something different. My guess is that you could not even define what would constitute fact of intelligent design. Intelligent design and classic evolutionary theory are at odds over one major point. That point is the relationship between cause and effect, and the evidence that would confirm the theory that the effects can be shown irrefutably to be the result of something random and unplanned, or the result of something specific and designed. How would it be possible to demonstrate that relationship between effect and an unknown cause (I say unknown because scientists don't know what causes the changes, they theorized, but have no proof of cause but a conclusion of "we don't know so we call it random and unplanned.") A conclusion of ignorance is hardly a proof of fact, beyond the fact of ignorance.
What a scientist believes about the existence of God is irrelevant because scientists do science, not theology, and it is in the area of science that I am giving the VAST majority opinion its weight of authority. If I wanted to discuss a consensus about God, I'd seek out an organization of ministries for that consensus. Thus, your Jefferson analogy is easily distinguishable from the present discussion. You seem to think that your definition of what is a fact is not subject to debate, yet, and let me emphasize this one more time, the OVERWHELMING majority of scientists -- those who do SCIENCE for a living, do not agree with your definition, because if they DID agree, then they would reject evolution. You can tell me and everyone else all day long that you alone know what is a scientific fact, and that any scientist who does not adopt your standard of falsifiability is not a scientist, but at the end of the day, there will be all the scientists on one side of the line, and you alone will be on the other. If the overwhelming majority of scientists accept evolution as a fact, then until someone comes along and convinces them otherwise, then I also accept evolution as a fact. Just as the overwhelming majority accepted that the Earth was the center of the Universe until Galileo came along. So, one more time -- if you think that the majority of scientists are wrong, then LET'S SEE YOU PROVE IT. Not using some Aristotle logic discussion, but by YOU DOING SCIENCE and falsifying each and every substantial evolutionary concept. If you can do this, then you will win the Nobel Prize and I will salute you. Otherwise, you're just spouting conclusions unsupported by any factual evidence, and as far as I'm concerned, those conclusions prove just one thing... Res Ipsa Locqutur
And now, for something completely different. The following summary is taken from: Weinberg, J. R., V. R. Starczak and P. Jora. 1992. Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory. Evolution. 46:1214-1220. Before you read it, I'm gonna tell you what it is -- proof of the creation of a new species by process of evolution. The new species no longer breeds with its predecessor, has a different genetic code, and both species exist in the present. Note: A "karyotype" is an organized profile of a creature's chromosomes. "Speciation in a Lab Rat Worm, Nereis acuminata In 1964 five or six individuals of the polychaete worm, Nereis acuminata, were collected in Long Beach Harbor, California. These were allowed to grow into a population of thousands of individuals. Four pairs from this population were transferred to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. For over 20 years these worms were used as test organisms in environmental toxicology. From 1986 to 1991 the Long Beach area was searched for populations of the worm. Two populations, P1 and P2, were found. Weinberg, et al. (1992) performed tests on these two populations and the Woods Hole population (WH) for both postmating and premating isolation. To test for postmating isolation, they looked at whether broods from crosses were successfully reared. The results below give the percentage of successful rearings for each group of crosses. WH Ã WH - 75% P1 Ã P1 - 95% P2 Ã P2 - 80% P1 Ã P2 - 77% WH Ã P1 - 0% WH Ã P2 - 0% They also found statistically significant premating isolation between the WH population and the field populations. Finally, the Woods Hole population showed slightly different karyotypes from the field populations."
"250 years ago in this country, men like Jefferson who were recognized as scientists believed in the existence of God. The vast majority of the members of the scientific community accepted God's existence as an obvious fact. It was not disputed to any great extent, and if someone did dispute it, they were considered a minority opinion and as such invalid. 250 years later, the majority opinion is that God is not a fact." give me a break. your average high school kid today knows more about science than jefferson did. most of the founding fathers were Diests. "The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -Thomas Jefferson
And, just in case someone wants to challenge vhehn's transcription of Jefferson's quote, the actual quote is found in a letter to John Adams, entitled CALVIN AND COSMOLOGY, written, at Monticello, April 11, 1823. (See http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbi...=text&offset=7031942&textreg=2&query=mystical)
Deists believe in the existence of God, in the form or manner of their choosing, not necessarily as described by a formal church or established religion: Deist (Page: 384) De"ist (?), n. [L. deus god: cf. F. déiste. See Deity.] One who believes in the existence of a God, but denies revealed religion; a freethinker. &hand; A deist, as denying a revelation, is opposed to a Christian; as, opposed to the denier of a God, whether atheist or patheist, a deist is generally denominated theist. Latham. Syn. -- See Infidel. http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=deist
From your link to Jefferson's writings: THE MORALS OF JESUS To Dr. Benjamin Rush, with a Syllabus Washington, Apr. 21, 1803 DEAR SIR, -- In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798-99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing ofmy opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other. At the short intervals since these -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -1123- conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Doctr Priestley, his little treatise of "Socrates & Jesus compared." This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road, and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus, or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity, as wished to see executed by some one of more leisure and information for the task, than myself. This I now send you, as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations & calumnies. I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public; because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behoves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between God & himself. Accept my affectionate salutations.
From Jefferson's CALVIN AND COSMOLOGY To John Adams Monticello, April 11, 1823 On the contrary I hold (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the Universe, in it's parts general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to percieve and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of it's composition. The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces, the structure of our earth itself, with it's distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles, insects mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organised as man or mammoth, the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their preserver and regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regenerator into new and other forms. We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power to maintain the Universe in it's course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view, comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and, were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos. So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed thro' all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to Unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable than that of the few in the other hypothesis. Some early Christians indeed have believed in the coeternal pre-existance of both the Creator and the world, without changing their relation of cause and effect. That this was the opinion of St. Thomas, we are informed by Cardinal Toleto, in these words `Deus ab aeterno fuit jam omnipotens, sicut cum produxit mundum. Ab aeterno potuit producere mundum. -- Si sol ab aeterno esset, lumen ab aeterno esset; et si pes, similiter vestigium. At lumen et vestigium effectus sunt efficientis solis et pedis; potuit ergo cum caus aeterna effectus coaeterna esse. Cujus sententiae est S. Thomas Theologorum primus' Cardinal Toleta. [/b]
So what? Jefferson is saying that he doesn't believe that Jesus was anything other than a great teacher -- certainly not the Son of God. All of this is utterly irrelevant to the topic. You have thrown out a red herring to distract instead of addressing the evolutionary evidence.
Once again, so what? Jefferson may have believed in intelligent design. However, his statement above that it is "impossible for the human mind not to percieve and feel a conviction of design," can be falsified right now, because I don't perceive this or feel anything of the kind. Additionally, Jefferson did not have the benefit of Darwin's text, so it's anyone's guess what he may have thought. As I said earlier, when the proof of intelligent design surfaces, and the majority of thinking people agree that it is a scientific fact, then I will adopt it -- but, not a moment sooner.