Posted on 12/03/2005 5:28:45 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
TO read the headlines, intelligent design as a challenge to evolution seems to be building momentum.
...
Behind the headlines, however, intelligent design as a field of inquiry is failing to gain the traction its supporters had hoped for. It has gained little support among the academics who should have been its natural allies. And if the intelligent design proponents lose the case in Dover, there could be serious consequences for the movement's credibility.
On college campuses, the movement's theorists are academic pariahs, publicly denounced by their own colleagues. Design proponents have published few papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You don't believe that the genetic makeup of populations change over time?
What's the post number?
You've been told before that every scientist worth his salt should agree to this statement as evolution doesn't even address the origins of life. If a scientist believes that this statement is groundbreaking then you really have to doubt how educated he is.
BTW, 700 is a very tiny number. How many of these are actually biologists rather than just religious computer scientists that one year of biology in high school?
Try post #310 for starters.
However, does it ever bother you that you're sharing a philosophical bed with the likes of Alfred Kinsey, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ted Kennedy and every other freako liberal in this country?
They're assuming facts not in evidence.
And spoil the joy of discovery? Just start skimming from the top.
You have been told many times that science does not deal in proof. It's not just trivial semantics - it's a very important point.
There is a huge amount of evidence in support of biological evolution. That is why it is accepted as a scientific theory rather than just an hypothesis.
The DNA evidence by itself is overwhelming evidence. Try looking at any of Incheun's posts on retro-viruses.
Multiple point by point analysis letters appear there as well as full text of proceedings. I suggest you read them. As to the effect of the changes:
"The number of changes made, the thoroughness with which references to evolution are deleted or definitions changed, it's more extensive than what we've seen before," said Molleen Matsumura of the National Center for Science Education.
The definition was changed so drastically that all references to evolution were censored. Two entire pages in the standards that referred evolution were deleted - because Steve Abrams didn't like evolution because of religious views - not scientific.
Science itself was redefined in the entire document so that science was no longer a search for natural phenomena for explanation - fuzzy philosophy could be included.
From Robert Dennison, 2003 President, Texas Association of Biology Teachers; Member of the review panel for Texas' State Science Education Standards critique of the changes: (emphasis added)
II. Discussion of specific proposed revisionsEven Alabama textbooks had stickers placed on the science textbooks stating evolution is "a controversial theory some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin of living things." That statement is a blatant lie. Adding to the effort of the ID/creationist crowd to use any means to destroy science education in the cause of a narrow dogma.1. a., b. and c. The intent of each of these revisions is to alter the definition of science, as discussed above, and should not be included. The original drafts of these sections are well written and will be very helpful to Kansas science teachers. Including the proposed revisions would weaken otherwise admirable statements.
1. d. The addition is unnecessary and misleading. The original statement is accurate and does not “ lead students into believing that science is all-knowing…” The proposed revision weakens the description, attempting to cause students to doubt whether science has any validity.
2. a. Addition is not needed. The evidence supporting the statements in the original Teacher Notes is overwhelming. There is no need to add qualifiers here. b. This is the first of several attempts by the authors to introduce discussions of historical hypotheses in a manner which lessens the importance of such explanations. Historical hypotheses are valid, important, and integral tools of science and students should not be given the impression that these methods are of little value. If Kansas science teachers are to achieve the goal of producing scientifically literate students, they must not be forced to include such distortions of the true nature of science.
3. The proposed indicator (#6) and accompanying additional specificity impose unreasonable expectations on both teachers and students. The addition of exercises in which students formulate and refute multiple hypotheses would be time consuming and serve no valid purpose. The only result of such activities would be the weakening of students’ confidence in scientific methods and explanations, again undermining the goals of science instruction.
4. These changes are especially misleading and confusing. The proposed insertion of 1. c. regarding nucleotides and natural law is very strange. The authors have either completely misunderstood or intentionally misrepresented James Watson’s intent in the passage being quoted. Dr. Watson was not addressing the “lack of any law…” He was, instead, describing why he and Crick were so sure that the “message” in DNA would have to be stored in the order of the bases rather than in some other aspect of the molecule’s structure. The quote has no bearing whatsoever on the claims made in 1. c.
5. More misinformation designed to weaken the state’s standards on the teaching of evolution. First of all, the definition of evolution listed here is not found in the current NABT Statement on the Teaching of Evolution. The statement actually says in the “supporting materials” that “The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of biological evolution—an unpredictable and natural process of descent with modification that is affected by natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, migration and other natural biological and geological forces.” The statement suggested for 2. f. is simply incorrect. Genetic Drift is not a part of natural selection. Genetic drift and natural selection are completely different mechanisms for producing changes in populations over time. All of the changes suggested in this section are solely for the purpose of weakening otherwise fine standards on the teaching of evolution. The purpose of such changes seems to be to cause students to question the validity of evolution. While students are certainly welcome to question any concepts being taught, it is the science teacher’s role to provide those students with an understanding of the current, best, consensus views of the scientific community in all areas of science. These changes would undermine that objective. This is especially true with respect to those changes suggested for indicator 5 on the importance of evolution to biology. The indicator is true as originally written, as were the original “additional specificity” statements in 5 a. – c. The revisions would make a very good document a very poor one, leading to poorly educated students who would have a distorted view not only of evolutionary theory, but of science in general.
6. These changes present unnecessary intrusions. The new indicators for Benchmark 2 would not serve any valid pedagogical purpose. The changes would, once again, only serve to weaken science instruction. Science is a useful process which students must come to understand in order to be successful, productive citizens. Rather than making students more scientifically literate, these changes would do just the opposite.
7. None of the proposed changes to the glossary are grounded in any modern consensus view of science. These changes, too, would not be good for Kansas science teachers or their students.
Not that that is surprising - Patricia Princehouse, Dept of Biology, Case Western University noted on the similarities on Kansas and Ohio by saying The intelligent design creationists use a campaign of misinformation and outright lies to attack the very nature of science, using slogans and issues that are not scientifically supported. Virtually all of the proposed IDnet changes would alter your standards with one effect –the changes would make the standards wrong.
Just a little bit of decption being played out here..... Carold is described as a biologist because that is, in fact her first degree along with education. But, she's never worked in the field. She went back to school and got a masters in counseling and teaches Biblical Psycology courses.
Um, actually, no, we can't observe this, or at least have not yet done so. (I don't know enough about imaging processes on the molecular level, but replication happens VERY fast and I doubt it can be captured and actually seen.) We can put some DNA into a test tube and, under the right circumstances, end up with more copies of it. In other words we observe the starting conditions and the ending conditions, but not the replication itself.
We only hypothesize the replication process and, as we do further research, the details of it, because we presume that no miracles occurred and only natural processes were involved. But the logic, and certainly the rhetoric, of ID is to deny the validity of this very presumption.
It would be interesting to see how many of those 700 actually received a graduate degree in a biological science at an accredited research university. I would also be curious to see how many of these 700 actually work as a biological scientist.
No, he was a scientist because of the disproof.
Let's trade. You show me the proof of Maxwell's equations, I'll show you the proof of ToE
Sun says: "About 700 scientists from Africa, Europe and the United States attended Saturday's "Darwin and Design" conference to press their contention that evolution cannot fully explain the origins of life or the emergence of highly complex species."
JeffAtlanta says: "You've been told before that every scientist worth his salt should agree to this statement as evolution doesn't even address the origins of life. If a scientist believes that this statement is groundbreaking then you really have to doubt how educated he is.
BTW, 700 is a very tiny number. How many of these are actually biologists rather than just religious computer scientists that one year of biology in high school?"
So, these 700 are your best and your brightest, and the others will follow.
These scientists are your CURIOUS scientists, not stuck in the past. These curious scientists will look at new evidence. (And I'll bet these scientists are not all named Steve. lol)
The 700 are scientists, so obviously have more than one-year of biology in high school. You are being disingenuous.
Just because THIS particular article has 700 doesn't mean that is all there are.
Oh yeah, and here's some more guys that have more than "one-year of biology in high school":
Here is a partial Bibliography consisting only of the Fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) http://www.iscid.org/fellows.php found in the ISCID Bibliography... just had to get this in before I left:
Histone Deletion Mutants Challenge the Molecular Clock Hypothesis
by Behe, Michael J
Trends in Biochemical Sciences 15: 374-376 1990
A Response to Critics of Darwin's Black Box
by Behe, Michael J.
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design Volume 1.1.4 March 2002
Natural Language and Natural Selection
by Pinker, Steven; Bloom, Paul
Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13: 707-784 1990
A Statistical Examination of Self-Ordering of Amino Acids in Proteins
by Kok, Randall A.; Taylor, John A.; and Bradley, Walter
Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 18, pp. 135-142 1988
Scientific Revolution and the Grammar of Culture: The Case of Darwin's Origin
by Campbell, John Angus
Quarterly Journal of Speech 72 (4): 351-376 1986
Integrated use of multiple interdependent patterns for biomolecular sequence analysis
by Chiu, D.K.Y. and Lui, T.H.
International Journal of Fuzzy Systems Vol.4, No.3, pp.766-775 September 2002
God, Creation and Mr Davies
by Craig, William Lane
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 37: 163-175 1986
'What Place, Then, For a Creator?': Hawking on God and Creation
by Craig, William Lane
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 41: 473-491 1990
Barrow and Tipler on the Anthropic Principle vs. Divine Design
by Craig, William Lane
British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38: 389-395 1988
Why Natural Selection Can't Design Anything
by Dembski, William A.
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design Volume 1.1.6 March 2002
Becoming a Disciplined Science: Prospects, Pitfalls, and Reality Check for ID
by Dembski, William A.
PCID 1.4.1 December 31 2002
Evolution's Logic of Credulity: An Unfettered Response to Allen Orr
by Dembski, William A.
PCID 1.4.5 December 31 2002
ID as a Theory of Technological Evolution
by Dembski, William A.
ISCID Archive
Random Predicate Logic I: A Probabilistic Approach to Vagueness
by Dembski, William A.
PCID Double Issue, Volumes 1.2 and 1.3, Article 5 October 30 2002
Some Theoretical and Practical Results in Context-Sensitive and Adaptive Parsing
by Jackson,Quinn Tyler
PCID 1.4.8 December 31 2002
A New Look at the Cosmological Argument
by Koons, Robert C
American Philosophical Quarterly 34 (2): 193-211 1997
Are Probabilities Indispensable to the Design Inference?
by Koons, Robert C.
Progress in Complexity, Informaiton and Design Volume 1.1.2 March 2002
The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory
by Langan, Christopher
PCID Double Issue, Volumes 1.2 and 1.3, Article 1 October 30 2002
Does the association of spectral absorption bands in sunlight with the spectral response of photoreceptors in plants imply coincidence, adaptation or design?
by Mims, Forrest M.
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design Volume 1.1.8 March 2002
The Role of Theology in Current Evolutionary Reasoning
by Nelson, Paul A
Biology and Philosophy 11: 493-517 1996
Searching for Deep Variation in the Model Systems of Evo-Devo
by Nelson, P. and Wells, J.
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design Volume 1.1.5 March 2002
What Does Evolutionary Computing Say About Intelligent Design?
by Stephan, Karl D.
PCID 1.4.4 December 31 2002
How to Contruct a Falsifiable Theory in Which the Universe Came Into Being Several Thousand Year Ago
by Tipler, Frank J
PSA 2: 873-902 1984
The History and Limits of Genetic Engineering
by Wells, Jonathan
International Journal on the Unity of the Sciences 5: 137-150 1992
Searching for Deep Variation in the Model Systems of Evo-Devo
by Nelson, P. and Wells, J.
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design Volume 1.1.5 March 2002
I would be interested in asking how many of them believe the TOE encompasses the origin of life, as stated in the title of their ignorance-fest.
That is an old canard that has been destroyed many times. It stems from ignorance of the scientific use of theory.
Is the theory of gravity propaganda? Tell that to yourself the next time you trip and fall. How about the theories on inertia, mass, and motion? Propaganda? Doesn't seem to be when you stub your toe in the middle of the night.
Yet many theories are taught in school - theory of gravity, theories on electron orbital and molecular bonding, theory of wave mechanics.
For your education - data are facts. A fact is NOT absolute certainty. It is "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional consent."
A formulated structure of to explain the observation of fact and predict future observations, supported by experimental data (facts) that stands the test of repeated experimentation, able to be verified by other experimenters and studies, and reproducible in studies - becomes a theory.
The line line 'it's just a theory' is either a statement of gross ignorance or a deliberate campaign of misinformation - a lie.
I knew you were making it up. lol
Why? Did you not understand the question?
"However, does it ever bother you that you're sharing a philosophical bed with the likes of Alfred Kinsey, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Ted Kennedy and every other freako liberal in this country?"
And also the 700 scientists from around the world, and the people in my post #555, and don't worry, I have MORE. :)
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