Posted on 02/22/2005 7:34:15 AM PST by PatrickHenry
When it's your job to serve as the president's in-house expert on science and technology, being constantly in the media spotlight isn't necessarily a mark of distinction. But for President Bush's stoically inclined science adviser John Marburger, immense controversy followed his blanket dismissal last year of allegations (now endorsed by 48 Nobel laureates) that the administration has systematically abused science. So it was more than a little refreshing last Wednesday to hear Marburger take a strong stance against science politicization and abuse on one issue where it really matters: evolution.
Speaking at the annual conference of the National Association of Science Writers, Marburger fielded an audience question about "Intelligent Design" (ID), the latest supposedly scientific alternative to Charles Darwin's theory of descent with modification. The White House's chief scientist stated point blank, "Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory." And that's not all -- as if to ram the point home, Marburger soon continued, "I don't regard Intelligent Design as a scientific topi."
[PH here:]
I'm not sure the whole article can be copied here, so please go to the link to read it all:
Chris Mooney, "Intelligent Denials", The American Prospect Online, Feb 22, 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at prospect.org ...
Thank you Wind, I meant it exactly as you have stated. A real understanding of evolution, and science in general, will show that it doesn't demonstrate that God doesn't exist and doesn't conflict with religious belief.
But predicting the unknown is what distinguishes good science from bad. Examples:
1) Einstein predicted that stars should appear to have a different position in the sky when observed during a solar eclipse than they do during the night.
2) Einstein also predicted that if you synchronize two really accurate clocks and then put one in an airplane and fly around the earth with it, it will indicate a different time than the one that stayed put.
3) Fresnel predicted that if you put a very small circular disk in a beam of light, it will cast a circular shadow, as expected, but at the center of that shadow there will be a bright spot.
4) Even further back, Galileo, contrary to prevailing wisdom and common sense, predicted that a heavier weight would fall at the same rate as a lighter one.
Of course, all of the above predictions were found to be true. Really good science makes such predictions. Evolution, for example, predicted that we would find similarities in the DNA of whales and hippos. It predicted that we would find fossils of dinosaurs with feathers. Its original prediction was that a hereditary mechanism would be found, and it predicted some of the characteristics of that mechanism. All of these, and many other predictions of evolution have been shown to be true. This doesn't prove evolution, but it sure makes it logical to believe that it's a pretty good explanation of the diversity of life. That's how science works. It must take risks. If any prediction of a theory turns out to be wrong, the theory must be modified or abandoned. ID takes no such risks. If a definitive test were found that could determine the presence or absence of design simply from the characteristics of an item, then living things could be put to the test, and ID would be shown to be either true or not. That would be scientific. If IDers were willing to limit the characteristics that they expected to see from the designer, then we'd have a potential way to falsify ID, and it would be scientific. However, as long as ID remains unfalsifiable, as long as there's no hypothetically possible observation that could be inconsistent with ID, it will remain unscientific.
Once isolation has occurred (into just 2 populations) each can go its merry way. They may both be vast in number, even if one (animal) population starts with just one family or a single pregnant female that has for example got across a mountain range.
Beneficial mutations will tend to spread through the entire population over many generations even if the advantage they confer is tiny. Natural selection sees to that. The 2 isolated populations will experience different beneficial mutations and different drift (which in itself opens up new possibilities for beneficial and harmful mutations) and the process of speciation begins. THis will tend to accelerate if for some reason any aspect of the environment of the two populations is markedly different, because then the selection pressure operating on the two populations will not be the same. A beneficial mutation in one environment might be harmful or neutral in the other, for instance.
We can see this "in process". Try googling on "ring species" for examples where we can see 3 or more isolated groups and group A and C can still interbreed with group B, but not with each other. Are they fully speciated yet? It depends on your definition. The theory of evolution predicts that the definition of species is hard to nail down for reasons like this, and indeed it is.
That's all right. It took mainstream science about 300 years to come up with the idea and another 100 to accept it. During that time all your questions were asked and examined.
If you read back in some of my earlier posts, I never made a claim that it was a scientific, I consider it to be philosophical.
Thank you for your polite reply. Departing to review ring species. I shall return.
If so-called evolution is true, why is it just a theory?
"If all humans are direct decendants of Adam and Eve...
Then How come we don't all look alike?"
Some of us look more alike than others, because when Noah's family was on the boat with all those animals, mistakes were made.
"Why would some monkeys evolve into humans and not others? What caused the jump?"
Only some human strains are related to monkeys. Most inlaws are related to monkeys, but your relatives are specially created by Nephilim who traveled from Galactos to put there pods in your basement.
We're trying not to hurt anyone's feelings.
Evolution again?
Of course, P.D.Q. Bach didn't yet write "A Man For All Seasonings." (By the Leeks of Babylon....)
Are micro-craters just pores or ant-lion traps?
More so than to cyprinids or hymenoptera. Less so than to bonobos or lemurs.
Why did your parents survive your birth?
That would be "their" pods.
Religion and science are in two different realms of knowledge. These two realms derive their knowledge from different sources and by different means. These realms test and approve new and old knowledge by different means and the knowledge is used quite differently and actually has different meanings and calls to action. The realms may not be mixed, rather they are complementary parts of the human experience.
A student asked me once if I believed in evolution. I simply answered "No. I just work with it every day." And as John Muir noted, 'the world we behold is not yet half created.' Maybe that's why monkeys are still alive.
Yeah. They should have promptly evolved into copies of me.
"Some of us look more alike than others, because when Noah's family was on the boat with all those animals, mistakes were made."
Why do Asians look so different from Caucasians and Africans and vice versa for all 3 groups?
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