Doctrine of Signatures: Why not ID support?
Reddfrogg
the 16th century, that held that God had placed a sign in various
medicinal plants indicating what the plant was best used for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures
For example, if the plant had heart shaped leaves, it was believed
that the plant was good for heart troubles. If the plant had leaves
shaped like a liver, it was good for liver diseases. The Mandrake
root, which looked something like a human body, was thought to be good
for the entire body.
My question is why this doctrine is not in wide use among the ID
proponents today? It would seem to be an excellent indication of an
intelligent designer, who had specifically intended these plants to be
used for medicinal purposes. Also, it would give the IDists an
actual testable hypothesis to explore.
So, why are IDists wasting their time with things like the bacterial
flagella, or the blood clotting system, and not demanding that the
Doctrine of Signatures be taught in medical schools? Why are they
allowing "Darwinian" biochemists, and pharmacologists to be dictating
what drugs are effective, based only on clinical testing, which only
uses naturalistic means of testing the effectiveness of the
medicine?
Obviously, if God placed a signature on a plant, that should be
good enough for them. After all, who knows the human body better than
the original designer, and who would know which plants are the best
medicine better than God? So, why are the IDists using modern "man
made" medicines, and techniques, and not adhering to God's own method
of signatures?
DJT
TomS
<67d548b8-5f47-4bc0...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>, Reddfrogg
stated..."
I wonder - just speculating - if there were many arguments in favor
of the Doctrine of Signatures which have been repeated by
creationism.
It would be amusing if there were something like "irreducible
complexity" in the history of the Doctrine of Signatures.
--
---Tom S.
the failure to nail currant jelly to a wall is not due to the nail; it is due to
the currant jelly.
Theodore Roosevelt, Letter to William Thayer, 1915 July 2
Ron O
Intelligent design was just a scam. Just as any creationist rube that
is bending over to take the switch scam. The above avenue of research
could result in something useful. No doubt there would be a low
probability of getting something useful, but that was never the plan
for ID.
Ron Okimoto
All-seeing-I
I see you cannot tell the difference between herbs that actually heal
and those that don't.
Reddfrogg
actually, no herbs "heal". At most, some herbs may have factors
helpful in treating diseases, but it's the immune system that heals
the body.
You seem to have missed the point. According to the doctrine of
signatures, there should be signs provided by God as to which herbs
are useful, and which are not. Why would God not give people clues
like this?
Apparently you lack the perception to see these signs, or perhaps
you don't believe that God intended herbs as medicine, and so left off
any signatures. In any case, why don't ID proponents use those plants
that kinda sorta look like body parts for healing those body parts?
Why are they allowing biochemists and pharmacologists to use science
to determine what compounds are effective, instead of taking the
"intelligent design" way, and looking for signatures?
DJT
bpuharic
>I see you cannot tell the difference between herbs that actually heal
>and those that don't.
neither could the ancients. scientific methodology is needed to do
this, and with their...and your...demon centered view of reality they
were unable to differentiate good from bad herbs
chris thompson
That's not the issue.
The issue is, why didn't the designer use this obvious tool to alert
humans? If, say, foxglove leaves were heart-shaped, it would be so
much easier to figure out that they should be used in some kind of
cardiac situation. Likewise, if liverwort is shaped so much like a
liver, why is it NOT useful in treating liver ailments?
Chris
Sapient Fridge
<4a06f950-2e38-4006...@j4g2000yqe.googlegroups.com>,
All-seeing-I <ap...@email.com> writes
Are you saying that all the thousands of herbalists who believed in the
Doctrine of Signatures were all wrong? What are the odds of that?
It's a nice example that the number of people who believe something has
absolutely no bearing on the truth of a matter. The way to test which
herbs heal and which don't is science, which you reject.
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Frank J
Speaking of "bending over", the only reason that the ID scam continues
to sell is because many (most?) people like to say "Thank you sir, may
I have another?"
> The above avenue of research
> could result in something useful. No doubt there would be a low
> probability of getting something useful, but that was never the plan
> for ID.
>
> Ron Okimoto- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Frank J
You're missing the whole point of the ID scam, which is to say as
little as possible about any other possible "theory," and keep the
focus on misrepresenting evolution. That way the clueless rubes can
infer whichever of the mutually-contradictory fairy tales they're
comfortable with, while the critics who should know better, feeding
the scam artists (1) facts that they can spin as more "gaps," and (2)
more opportunities to say that "Darwinists" don't "understand" ID. So
IDers will never admit that it's about God, nor will they ever propose
anything testable in terms of what the unnamed, possibly deceased,
designer did, when or how.
The fatal problems with the bacterial flagellum argument may be
obvious to scientists, but the argument is a brilliant strategy to
mislead nonscientists. Everyone from "6-day-6000-year-ago" literalists
to the "I guess something like evolution happened but the jury's still
out" crowd will be wowed by it, oblivious to the fact that it proposes
no testable alternative, and only vaguely hints that whatever unusual
process occurred, it was so long ago that it makes no sense to try to
"connect the dots."
Earle Jones
<67d548b8-5f47-4bc0...@b15g2000yqd.googlegroups.com>,
Reddfrogg <redd...@bresnan.net> wrote:
> The Doctrine of Signatures was a belief popular among herbalists, in
> the 16th century, that held that God had placed a sign in various
> medicinal plants indicating what the plant was best used for.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_signatures
>
> For example, if the plant had heart shaped leaves, it was believed
> that the plant was good for heart troubles. If the plant had leaves
> shaped like a liver, it was good for liver diseases. The Mandrake
> root, which looked something like a human body, was thought to be good
> for the entire body...
*
Dana: Greetings!
Even today the 'ginseng' root, which looks like the male sex organ, is
thought to enhance man's sexual ability. The two Chinese character for
'gin' and 'seng' mean 'man' and 'root'.
earle
*
PS: By the way, it doesn't work!
Earle Jones
<80c06261-828a-4138...@e31g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>,
Frank J <fc...@verizon.net> wrote:
*
Is the bacterial flagellum still the latest and best ID example? As I
recall, the first was the human eye, then the blood clotting cascade,
and then some others. Aren't there some more and better examples of
'irreducible complexity' from the ID world?
earle
*