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Have you ever really looked at intelligent design?
York Daily Record (PA( ^ | 9/29/05 | Mike Argento

Posted on 09/29/2005 7:32:43 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor

HARRISBURG — Wednesday morning, as day three of the Dover Panda Trial meandered into discussions of stoner logic and street cred, one of the lawyers for the school district, Patrick Gillen, asked Robert Pennock, a philosopher of science from Michigan State University and a serious, serious brainiac, whether the idea of "intelligent design" was a Big Ten theory.

Pennock — who, I can't stress this enough, is an incredible brainiac — looked puzzled. It was clear that he had never heard of any connection between the idea of intelligent design and what some consider the best college football conference in the country. He paused for a moment and then spoke, kind of haltingly.

"As a member of a Big Ten school, I should know that," he said.

Gillen clarified.

"I said 'big tent,'" he said.

But when you think about, in the context of Pennock's testimony and his academic cred, intelligent design really isn't a Big Ten idea. It's more of a Conference USA idea.

Think about it. On the surface, intelligent design seems like a credible scientific theory. It sounds scientific. The people pushing it say it's scientific.

But if you apply the rules of science, the notion that the idea has to be supported and tested using credible, tangible evidence, it really isn't. It's like a Conference USA school playing, say, Michigan State and being exposed as a mere facsimile of a major college football team.

Later, Gillen asked Pennock a question about what someone would believe about design when they saw a computer model of evolution that he and other scientists have created.

I'll get to that, but first, this computer model is kind of hard to explain. Pennock explained, well, how it worked and what it demonstrated and just how incredibly amazing it is. And it really sounded amazing. As best as I can describe it, it starts with a line of computer code that can replicate itself. Then, it replicates and mutates. And here's where the mechanisms of natural selection come in. Most of the mutations are bad and those codes don't do anything. Some, though, evolve and grow more and more complex.

In the end, the scientists have a digital organism — for want of better expression — that can perform complex tasks and by examining the record of its creation, they can figure out how it happened.

Really, it's a lot more amazing than I make it sound.

Did I mention that Pennock is a brainiac? Anyway, back to Gillen's question about whether somebody looking at the computer program could believe that it was created by a programmer. Pennock explained how the program worked, and that during the process as the code evolves, and at the end of the process, you can't really tell who or what created it because it essentially created itself.

Gillen persisted and Pennock explained he couldn't really answer the question. "You're asking me a psychological question about what somebody believes. They could believe all sorts of things," he said.

He got into what some people believe later. Young Earth creationists, for instance, believe our planet is between 6,000 and 10,000 years old, based on analysis of Scripture. Sure, you can believe that, Pennock said. But it ignores the evidence or claims that the evidence was placed there by God to fool us, which, when you think about, is a kind of odd way to describe the deity, as some kind of cosmic prankster.

And that's when Pennock unloaded this: "For all we know, the world may have been created five minutes ago and we've all been implanted with memory chips."

Whoa.

Dude.

And thus did intelligent design somehow join the wow-have-you-ever-looked-at-your-hand-I-mean-really-looked school of stoner intellectual epistemology.

Later, the trial took a fun turn, if your idea of fun is watching a lawyer badger some woman.

You knew it was going to be fun when Richard Thompson, another of the lawyers for the school district, referred to "a bit of street wisdom" while questioning Julie Ann Smith, one of the plaintiffs in the case and the mother of two.

Thompson, a white guy in a dark blue suit on the descending side of middle age, is all about the street, homey.

The street wisdom was "don't believe everything you read in the newspapers."

Word, Home-Slice.

And yet, that wasn't the most entertaining aspect of Wednesday's proceedings.

That came when Robert Muise, the third member of the school district's legal team, rose to object when plaintiff Beth Eveland began to testify about a letter to the editor she had written.

"Hearsay," he intoned.

In general legal terms, hearsay is essentially a witness testifying to something they learned from a third party, and, except for some exceptions, is not permitted in court since the person repeating the words has no idea whether they are true because they were obtained third-hand. (And some people say this column has no educational content.)

In this case, Muise was objecting to Eveland testifying about her own words.

Judge John E. Jones III, the federal jurist hearing the case, looked at Muise, bearing an expression that he couldn't really believe what he just heard.

The judge asked Muise, "Who wrote the letter?"

Muise said, "She did," and sat down.

As they say on the street, the judge punked him.


TOPICS: Science
KEYWORDS: crevolist; dover; dovertrial; evolution
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To: gusopol3

"and it doesn't give fellas like you any pretence for arrogating an extra 50 I.Q. points to yourself over anybody that disagrees with you.
"

Oh, I'd never do that. I.Q. has never been much of an indicator of reasoning ability or correctness of thinking. There are some very bright folks out there, most much smarter than me, who are abject nut cases when it comes to scientific theories.


21 posted on 09/29/2005 8:02:09 AM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Aracelis

But what I really had in mind was "Squid pro quo." That's okay, what you're using is better.


22 posted on 09/29/2005 8:02:28 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
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To: RightWingAtheist

Let's see...that ape is holding a smoking pipe and has his hand out asking for something. I'd say he was a liberal, but everyone knows that apes can't think.

I think I'll just be safe and give him the banana. Those apes are strong as heck!


23 posted on 09/29/2005 8:03:54 AM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: RightWingAtheist

Don't be dissin' my granpappy, now!


24 posted on 09/29/2005 8:07:16 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
Some very good writers write for small town papers. Mike Argento is just wickedly funny,

Do you really mean to give him so much props?

check out his columns...he's a left wing loser. Anti-war, anti-Bush...not exactly to fine qualities on a conservative forum.

25 posted on 09/29/2005 8:08:17 AM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
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To: PatrickHenry
But what I really had in mind was "Squid pro quo." That's okay, what you're using is better.

You did it again! Took me almost 10 hours to get that thing out of my head yesterday. (mutter, mutter, grumble, grumble, lawyers, mutter, grumble)

26 posted on 09/29/2005 8:10:08 AM PDT by Aracelis ("Embrace the madness" - courtesy of PatrickHenry, used with permission)
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To: PatrickHenry
Maybe I'm not in on the joke, but I found the article smarmy and rudely sarcastic.

BTW, all this political debate is about evolution, but my understanding is that Intelligent Design was a concept developed for astrophisics. They were considering why the universe came trogether with just the right mix of forces, particles, etc. to hold it all together and permit everything, including life ultimately, to exist.

Had the universe taken slight turns in different directions, it would never have formed in the way we experience it. The proponents were not pushing religion just asking questions. They immediately met with resistance by scientists who were upset the theory might introduce some First Principle or God behind everything.

This is the real stomping ground for ID, not evolution. Although I know there are some weaknesses in evolutionary theory, I believe evoilution takes place. The question is whether this is a ll random chance or are things "designed" in some way for some reason, to reach the results we see.

As much as scientists fight to "prove" randomness they simply are nowhere near unraveling the workings of nature enough to answer these questions. Indeed, almost all avenues of deep scientific research reach a fuzzy dead end at this point.

Examples are quantum theory, the inside of a black hole, the universe before the big bang, etc. At a certain point scientists become "religious" in tone. We can never know what happens inside a black hole, or before the big bang, and so there is/was nothing there and it doesn't matter, and this unknowability begins to sound like religious, not scientific mystery. Science admits it can't see beyond that veil, says we never will be able to, and then ignorantly says it doesn't matter.

The belief by a scientist that nothing preceded the big bang is at least as "silly" as any religious notion.

27 posted on 09/29/2005 8:11:01 AM PDT by Williams
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To: Right Wing Professor
Proof of Evolution:

Early Humanoid female:

Modern Human female:


28 posted on 09/29/2005 8:12:42 AM PDT by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: Right Wing Professor
Most of the mutations are bad and those codes don't do anything.

Nice design, there is a free lunch after all.

Of course since the Dover School Board has no ID requirement in it's curriculum the article is rather off point but it was amuzing.

29 posted on 09/29/2005 8:12:42 AM PDT by jwalsh07 (Disbar Ronnie Earl)
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To: Right Wing Professor

That should rad amusing and by that I mean it's funny to see the lenghts some folks will go to misrepresent the issue. In fact, hilarious.


30 posted on 09/29/2005 8:14:40 AM PDT by jwalsh07 (Disbar Ronnie Earl)
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To: jwalsh07

Sheesh, rad should be read. Put your glasses on dumdum.


31 posted on 09/29/2005 8:15:30 AM PDT by jwalsh07 (Disbar Ronnie Earl)
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To: Right Wing Professor
It's like a Conference USA school playing, say, Michigan State

As a Univ Cincy alum, I take exception....last year we were Conference USA.

And CUSA basketball could play with anyone. And did....Louisville make the Final Four.

And CUSA football last year would have taken Michigan State.

So...let's be careful with our sports comparisons.

32 posted on 09/29/2005 8:16:37 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It!)
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To: wallcrawlr
check out his columns...he's a left wing loser. Anti-war, anti-Bush...not exactly to fine qualities on a conservative forum.

The last person to tell me something funny wasn't funny because the politics was wrong was a member of the Women's Studies Faculty.

She's still single, BTW. Want her email address? :=)

33 posted on 09/29/2005 8:19:40 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor

no thanks.

see this thread for reference:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1493046/posts

Ann Coulter: Never Compliment a Democrat

Best selling author and conservative pundit Ann Coulter told Alan Colmes on the "Hannity and Colmes" show on Fox News last night that she meant it when she wrote in her book "How to Talk to a Liberal - If You Must," now out in paperback, that the rules for talking to a liberal forbid complimenting or showing graciousness to, or flattering a Democrat.


34 posted on 09/29/2005 8:23:04 AM PDT by wallcrawlr (http://www.bionicear.com)
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To: jwalsh07
Sheesh, rad should be read.

I was just going to say, check the expiration date on your street-cred. The last time I heard 'rad', the Beatles were in the Top 40.

35 posted on 09/29/2005 8:25:09 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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To: Right Wing Professor
And thus did intelligent design somehow join the wow-have-you-ever-looked-at-your-hand-I-mean-really-looked school of stoner intellectual epistemology.

hah!

36 posted on 09/29/2005 8:25:48 AM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Paging Nehemiah Scudder:the Crazy Years are peaking. America is ready for you.)
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To: Right Wing Professor

How did your thread end up in "Chat"? That's the burial ground of this website.


37 posted on 09/29/2005 8:27:09 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Disclaimer -- this information may be legally false in Kansas.)
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To: Williams

You're confusing Intelligent Design with the so-called Strong Anthropic Principle, which isn't taken seriously by the overwhelming majority of scientists either.


38 posted on 09/29/2005 8:28:27 AM PDT by RightWingAtheist (Bring back Modernman!)
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To: Right Wing Professor

Many creationists don't seem to grasp that as much as they fervently believe in The Creation, it cannot be called scientific. I think what Jesus said about rendering to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's should apply here.

For the same reason, they're shooting themselves in the foot with the Intelligent Design theory by insisting that the Designer was God. This is what people in, for example, the Church of Christ profess when they say they don't even accept "Theistic Evolution."

As I understand it, and I'm sure I'll be vehemently corrected here if I'm mistaken, this hypothetical intelligent designer is an unknown entity. Thus the designer(s) could've been from any extraterrestrial civilization extant at the time.


39 posted on 09/29/2005 8:34:18 AM PDT by Marauder (The height of hypocrisy: Members of congress upset because someone lied to them.)
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To: PatrickHenry

Somebody must have complained that others of Mr. Argento's columns are Politically Incorrect.


40 posted on 09/29/2005 8:35:16 AM PDT by Right Wing Professor
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