"Can you help me find my continuum transfunctioner?"
Posted on 04/18/2006 4:19:25 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The tweedy academics of America have joined my battle to stop a creationist takeover of outer space
For me, the battle over teaching creationism in US schools has become achingly personal. Groups seeking to oust the theory of evolution from biology class - or at least hint to students that Darwin's ideas are suspect - are invoking my research to support their crusade. I work with the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti), an effort to find sentient beings in space by using massively large antennas to troll for alien radio signals. Any technologically adroit society will be capable of broadcasting to listeners light years away. If there's cosmic company in our galaxy, a radio antenna might just be the way to find it.
[snip]
Few scientists give a thumbs up to creationism or its subtler variant, intelligent design (ID). The basis of ID is that nature is too intricate to have been built bottom-up by natural processes - as British creationists will hear from John Mackay, a former science teacher from Australia who starts a tour of the UK next week. The meandering course of Darwinian evolution couldn't produce a microbe's flagellum, a DNA molecule, or a human eye, say ID's adherents. They proclaim the complexity of these constructions as proof of deliberate blueprinting by a creator, presumably from outside the universe itself.
It's here that they get personal. They say: "If you Seti researchers receive a complex radio signal from space, you'll claim it as proof of intelligent, alien life. Thus your methodology is completely analogous to ours - complexity implying intelligence and deliberate design." And Seti, they pointedly add, enjoys widespread scientific acceptance.
[massive snip]
(Excerpt) Read more at education.guardian.co.uk ...
Gentle reminder: Now hear this: No personal attacks (title of thread posted 15 March 2006 by Jim Robinson).
|
Marvin the Martian bump.
The Moooooodulator... THe Plutonium X19 Mooooooodulator.
I must have it to destroy the earth.
Define: "few"
Otherwise, LIE #1: "You cannot be a scientist and believe in creation or ID."
19.
Few scientists give a thumbs up to creationism or its subtler variant, intelligent design (ID)
Subtler in the way that a claw hammer is subtler than a sledge hammer.
This guy is a scientologist ---right? I mean Xenu and all that stuff? Sounds like Ron Hubbard got another one.
At least he admits to being a troll.
I was heartened, therefore, to learn that the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society, is finally urging scientists to push back on ID.
Great, but they need to take care not to make it seem there is a 'controversy' within the scientific community.
19
3 (number of natural philosophers ascribing to that ludicris and academically pilloried theory called heliocentricity, Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes)
"Can you help me find my continuum transfunctioner?"
In biology, less than 1%.
Otherwise, LIE #1: "You cannot be a scientist and believe in creation or ID."
Sure you can. Scientists can be wrong, too. They just get called on it by their profession when they are found to be wrong. Scientists who are wrong about evolution will probably never get a paper published on the subject, though, because their opinions would likely contradict every piece of known data about the subject over the last 200 years.
Which I think sums it up neatly.
And while I'm about it, let me publically state a prediction, so that when it comes true I will get the credit. To wit,
When we finally do receive a message from outer space, that message will be spam
Please note this prophecy is copyright 2006 by ToryHeartland, all rights reserved &c. &c.
Also note, I'm not so foolish as to predict the precise nature of our first inter-galactic spam. It could be a product for increasing the size of bodily parts our species doesn't even possess, or a request for our bank details from an executive at the First Galactic Bank of Alpha Centauri so he can ship some alien currency out of an unclaimed account, or an offer to sell medications normally only available with a prescription in spiral galaxies -- who knows?
But it will come!
Once again, I feel obligated to point out that a primary difference between ID and SETI, all methodology and veracity aside, is that SETI researchers are honest enough to admit that they have found absolutely no physical evidence supporting the existence of what they are searching for.
SETI researchers have hypothesized a specific behavior to look for, something not known to exist without a human source. They are doing research.
ID advocates have failed to form any hypothesis whtsoever, have not described any attribites of the designer, in terms of methods, goals, instances. And in 200 years, they have done no research.
Your post makes a lot of sense. Seriously. THink about it. In the biological world, there is a lot of 'communication' that borders on advertizing, primarily related to mating, feeding and territory. Pheromones, different auditory calls, color displays all to attract a mate. Or a predator hijacks those signals to lure a food to it. Or others do it to say 'this is my space so get lost.' Those things litterally 'spam' the natural world.
Don't get me wrong, I agree there (though I'm personally skeptical that they'll ever find anything). I'm just trying to say, if IDers are going to compare themselves to SETI, does this also mean their results are completely negative? (i.e. I don't see SETI researchers pushing to have the existence of space aliens taught in public schools.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.