Discussion on Intelligent Design
Vijay Started it

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Here's a famous example, assume you find a watch in some field. You'd immediately conclude that it was made by someone right? Would you be willing to believe that the particular watch you found "evolved" from some primitive stuff?
They apply this argument to complex pieces of apparatus like the human eye. Another frequently used argument is called "irreducible complexity", blood-clotting needs about 12 proteins (all of them) to work in tandem for it to occur.
They say that such systems are irreducibly complex, lack of anyone protein disturbs the process. It must mean someone should have designed the process, an "Intelligent Designer".


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Sujith

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Vamshi, I guess, you knew this was coming ..

But I take umbrage to the fact that you mentioned this in the same breath as the so called saffronization of history ..

Aren’t we talking similarities between Oranges and apples here.. ?

e.g.

Apples : Evolutions.. say the horse came from the donkey .. ID says nopes, horse came from someone who wanted humans to ride ..

One is provable.. one is not ..

Oranges : Someone might say , Aryans invaded from North west.. , others might not agree and that it might have been a peaceful migration..

Both are just different ways of “recorded” history .. neither Is provable..

And what is proven .. might not be addressed .. ( Temple remains in Ayodhya .. ) .. :D

Let me digress.. Let things be discussed.. why are we putting things under the carpet..

Someone famous said “ Nobody can stop an idea , whose time has come “..

Similarly may I say … “Nobody can ever perpetuate an idea, whose value is not forthcoming “..

Isn’t the current version of history “leftized “ .. Mooplar rebellion on the Malabar coast ?

Massacres and Freedom struggles can be made to look different when painted with a fresh set of paint..

Why do we still depend on the British to provide us with our history ?

President Kalam writes in his book.. “In our entire history , we have not attacked another country .. “ .. That is plain wrong..

Just look for the temple remains.. in Cambodia .. I read one article.. some months back.. which said..

The kind of brutality that the Tamil Kings committed in Indo China .. ( old Malaya.. circa 1300 AD , is second to none.. )

One king it seems had decided to move his capital to the other side of Bay of Bengal.. probably explains why .. no remains of

His kingdom remains here ..

One more recent article from http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/19spec2.htm

How is that I have never heard about this ever in my life till now ?

As they say, one man’s hero is another man’s villain ..

-sujith

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Vijay..

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History discussions are usually painful.

The "Intelligent Design" debate has a chance of being resolved at least after a few thousand years. By 10000 AD, Evolution might explain everything about life or we might have become familiar with the aliens from Andromeda who designed the life on earth.

Aryan Invasion Theory and other such controversial things have no such luck (until we invent time travel!). We have to depend upon written history which is woefully incomplete. Unknown stuff is scary. How are you going to "prove" that ancient people from India DID NOT go to Egypt and build the pyramids? You say there is no evidence? I can argue it just hasn't been found yet. Most of history has to make do with what it has, not what could have been found.

Some hyper-radical views of 18th century british historians have mostly been discredited. No one seriously backs the AIT any more. Sujith mentioned british historians and leftist historians in the same breath as well. It has a little explaining to do. How Indian history was perceived by both was a little different. Early british versions of Indian history angered our nationalists (for obvious reasons) and they lashed back with their own flowery versions. Neither approach is really useful.

Sujith & Vijay, thanks for the nice discussion ..

Sujith, I continue to have this problem with you :-) .. you are taken by one (in my opinion) insignificant sentence in the whole mail and you are out on a trail .. I guess the context was clear .. I was never subscribing, much less recommending, to any of the versions of history, right ya left by making the sort of comparison .. (on second look, I wouldn't even have brought it in for I feel the saffronisation will gain credence by equating it with the ID discussion .. okay, I am kidding) .. to use your own metaphor, I wasn't comparing Apples and Oranges .. I was just saying both Apples and Oranges are fruits .. can't you take things that simple .. or has someone proclaimed a ban on using both those words in a single sentence or paragraph .. ufff ..

And Vijay, nice points you have raised .. A few thoughts from my side .. Only research should prove other research wrong .. nice thoughts .. but which research is right .. more so when every historian worth his salt is tagged by a faith and there are always doubts on the methods of analysis themselves .. plus all historic (so-called) facts are always readily discredited .. "History is written by winners" is the common refrain (though I think that's an all-pervasive convenient argument to counter anything inconvenient) .. Objective evaluation is an ideal we all can aspire for but which I think is humanly impossible .. for each of us (however learned and matured) have our own notions/beliefs/hunch/gut whatever .. plus there is that issue of convenience/inconvenience of all people in power making the process that much difficult .. but having said all that (even going beyond the point while doing so), I go by every word you said .. all misgivings considered, if not for anything, the leftists view "seems" non-prejudiced for it's mostly devoid of extremes .. I think that's the way the world is, any given time ..

And yes, history discussions are painful .. but interesting too .. :-)
- posted by andhramahabharatam @ 1:02 PM