Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

The New York Times ^ | December 4, 2005 | LAURIE GOODSTEIN

[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.

[PatrickHenry]

Note to self: Pay attention to your own tagline.

[balrog666]

... if one accepts evolution as a working theory (or hypothesis), how does one tell right from wrong?

... if one accepts the theory of gravity as a working theory (or hypothesis), how does one tell right from wrong?

Or are you dishonestly equating evolution with atheism?

[Thatcherite]

Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive, and I'm saying that continuing to teach this theory must have its consequences.

1. Evolution has no ethical content at all. It is a statement of what happens, not a morality statement. Germ, atomic, and gravity theory also have no ethical content.

2. You are wrong when you say the strong MUST survive. Strength is one of many atttributes. Actually survivors survive. There is no absolute standard of what attributes are good or bad, the only measure is reproductive success. In human society strength is not particularly highly valued compared with many other attributes.

[BMCDA]

And it's also apparent that like most creationists he overlooks the fact that the Theory of Evolution, like every other theory in science, is descriptive and not prescriptive.

[Liberty Wins]

It's been fun, but I have a family. Ping me when you solve the problems of the world with evolution.

[Thatcherite]

PIng me when you've solved the problems of the world with religion. You've only had 6000 years or so, so far.

[Jeff Gordon]

Spoken like a true megalomaniac

i·ron·ic    ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (-rnk) also i·ron·i·cal (-rn-kl)
adj.

1. Characterized by or constituting irony.
2. Given to the use of irony. See Synonyms at sarcastic.
3. Poignantly contrary to what was expected or intended: madness, an ironic fate for such a clear thinker.

---

i·roni·cal·ly adv.
i·roni·cal·ness n.

Usage Note: The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply “coincidental” or “improbable,” in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York. Some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us. By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.

[balrog666]

So how does a biology teacher explain to students that yes, they descended from the same ancester as the ape, but no, they need to act in a different way from the animals,

They do? In what way do they need to act differently than the other animals?? Are you suggesting they don't need to strive to eat, excrete, and survive?

but I can't tell you the source of this wisdom.

You think there is only one source of wisdom in the world? That's a sad little world you've made for yourself.

Oh, and you should be "cooperative" for the sake of the larger society, and how many kids will buy that? Hmm, let's "cooperate" to fool the security guards and shoplift this weekend?

Without the Bible in school, children turn into thieves whereas, prior to that they were all little angels?

You are not making any sense here.

[jennyp]

Evolution's ethical content consists of the idea that the strong MUST survive, and I'm saying that continuing to teach this theory must have its consequences.

Being strong & self-interested in an immediate sense may be a good strategy for a relatively brainless species, but as you look at species with bigger & bigger brains, who instinctively keep track of what their comrades are doing and who owes whom, etc., they tend to develop more & more complex ways of cooperating with each other.

IIRC all primates have some capacity for staying familiar with dozens of members of their clan (in humans it's around 150), for understanding what others are thinking, feeling what others are feeling, thinking in abstractions, and looking into the future. All these abilities find their apex in Man. This has given us an amazing capacity for finding new ways to encourage cooperation & enforce contracts, and this has made human civilization possible.

IOW, if you want to use evolution to ground a moral system (an iffy proposition, theoretically, but hypothetically if you wanted to) you'd conclude that evolution says that humans MUST develop extensive moral systems that encourage everyone to cooperate & deal with each other honestly & fairly.

[js1138]

I think you have hit something on the head. If I had to pick the tipping point for science as a universally respected institution, it would be the publication of "Unsafe At Any Speed" by Ralph Nader. That was where science was clearly subjugated to politics.

Some time after that, Nader took over Consumer Reports and politicized it. Instead of science serving to provide information, it became a tool to justify political intervention in everyday life.

I am fairly certain that at least some of the global warming statements are true, but science has been so thoroughly discredited as an objective source of information, that debates are just shouting matches.

[Jeff Gordon]

What is "ridicules" is that you were unable to obtain the intended meaning of that sentence. You anti-Es never cease to amuse.

Okay. I am grinning. You see, I am an anti-anti-E.

It seems that when one piles subtle implication upon subtle implication the true meaning becomes one of reader's choice. Since I made a stupid error of using "ridicules" when I should have used "ridiculous" you assumed I was stupid. Since I am assumed stupid, you justifiably assumed that I must be anti-E.

[longshadow]

maniacal placemarker

[furball4paws]

Daphnia with teeth.

[jess35]

Is a belief in God the only thing that keeps you from acting like an animal?

If it were not for the Bible, would you sit around and dream about killing and dismembering your neighbors?

[js1138]

To criticize form while ignoring substance is a sign of losing.

I am under no illusion that I am winning or losing a debate. I know the outcome of this discussion; it will be the same as the outcome of all such discussions.

In ten years ID will be saying the same things it is saying now, the same things it was saying in 1802. It will have made no progress, done no research, added nothing useful to the sum of human knowledge.

ID has no research ideas, has never had any research ideas, because it isn't interested in research. It is content with pointing out whatever problems in biology that remain unsolved. It has no interest in solving them.

[Gumlegs]

Have you ever looked a a piece of motion picture film? If you have, you'll notice that NOT ONE IMAGE MOVES! Yet, it is a "motion picture." This is the agrument you're making.

Where's the motion? And where's the sound? Don't even try telling me that squiggly thing on the left is "sound." I've held it up to my ear. It doesn't make any noise at all!

[CarolinaGuitarman]

You can't PROVE that it's a motion picture with sound. It's all pure inference.


(sarc/off)

[CarolinaGuitarman]

I seemed to have missed the second part of your long post to me earlier.

"1. mathematics & statistics shows you can't get order out of chaos. For this, you can't get more highly complex organisms out of the chaotic happenings of natural selection."

Math and statistics say no such thing. And for the umpteenth time, natural selection is not random. It is not chaotic.

"While still on chance, when figuring the chance that a penny will land heads-up 10 times in a row, you have to multiply the chance it will do so once (1/2) by itself 10 times (1/1024). What's the chance that enough genetic changes would occur to evolve a bacterium into even a protozoan with organelles & a nucleus, much less a human, even if you allow for billions of years. All the evolutionary progress made in the first million years is more statistically likely to be erased by a lethal mutation than furthered by a helpful mutation."

Absolute horse manure. There is NO POSSIBLE WAY for you to make such a calculation without knowing the processes that led to the evolution of the protozoan. Anybody who claims to have a probability of such an occurrence is pulling the number out of their butts.

"Evolution can't explain something as fundamental as sex. Within a species, one organism has to mutate into a male & another has to mutate into a female, in such a way that it happens in both where they can sexually reproduce fertile offspring. But before they can sexually reproduce, they have to evolve haploid tissue within their diploid bodies in order to produce gametes that allow fertilization to take place. Give me a break!"

Give us a break! Your example is a creationist fantasy version of evolution.

Ok, now you can go Christmas shopping again. :)

[Gumlegs]

Let's take this one from the top:

Facts? Man made facts? Are they factual? Are they made up? Who came up with these theories and then said they were factual? Science is man made. I rest my case.

Gumlegs:

Go ahead and throw out everything we've learned in the last 150 years. All progress -- it's all based on man-made facts and man-made theories. Man-made science came up with the theories that man-made technology then used to create electrical power plants, electrical wire, CRTs, and keyboards. Or do you think that somehow God appeared one afternoon and filled all the COMP-USA stores with computers?

Go ahead and rest your case. Ignore germ theory. Ignore everything based on it. Your choice. doin't foist it on me.

And in your spare time, please demonstrate that God is not man-made.

And don't foist it on me, either. "doin't" indeed.

Learned from man? What proof? Who says it is real? Man? Please !!! If believing in evolution is about making one intelligent then we are in serious trouble!

Who says what is real? You should really try using a noun now and then; it would clear up a lot of the confusion. What is learned from man, and why should that be considered invalid? Because we don't know what you're talking about, your question "What proof?" is unanswerable, although I must admit I prefer 90 proof.

Believing in evolution, as you put it, has nothing to do with intelligence, although it does, sometimes, separate those who deal with facts from those who deal with faith. There are also those who deal with both; they have no problem with evolution, either (i.e. Pope John Paul II). As it is, I have no belief in evolution, I accept it as the theory that best explains the known facts.

Who said G-d is man-made? Amazing how when one does not have a clue what they are talking about they put extra things into the conversation that was never mentioned much less thought of when posted. :)

You were the one who introduced the "What are facts?" line of questions. My question about God being man-made was in response to that:

Facts? Man made facts? Are they factual? Are they made up? Who came up with these theories and then said they were factual? Science is man made.

I'll try this another way: Is it all a dream? What is reality? Wow, man! It's December ... can you hear what color it is?

[Gumlegs]

D'ooooooooh!