Posted on 04/10/2005 3:53:04 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
A pro-evolution group has organized what appears to be a successful boycott of Kansas hearings on intelligent design.
Alexa Posny, a deputy commissioner with the state department of education, told the Kansas City Star that only one person has agreed to testify on the pro-evolution side for the hearings scheduled for May.
"We have contacted scientists from all over the world," Posny said. "There isn't anywhere else we can go."
Harry McDonald, head of Kansas Citizens for Science, charged that the hearings, called by a conservative majority on the state board of education, have a pre-ordained outcome.He said that testifying would only make intelligent design appear legitimate.
"Intelligent design is not going to get its forum, at least not one in which they can say that scientists participated," he said.
Backers of intelligent design, the claim that a supreme being guided evolution, say it is a theory with scientific backing. Opponents believe it is an attempt to smuggle religion into public education.
I wouldn't call these people single issue voters. They distrust conservatives on almost all issues. Most are monogamous, pro-gun, small-government, low-taxers. They will never vote for conservatives (or the GOP) because of the perceived anti-science stance these groups continually take.
They didn't like Carter or Clinton, either thougth. About 60% voted for Kerry because they didn't trust Bush to be truthful. (There is a perception that Bush likes science that agrees with his policies; not that other presidents have been better.) The other 40% voted for Bush because they just didn't like Kerry.
you: An algorithm (as we are using the term loosely in this case) may make use of random choices. There's much literature on the subject. One can plan to make a random choice and follow that choice.
Ahh...
You forgot to show your work....
You see, science depends on proof and repeatability. Do you have either?
I see that betty boop is already engaged on the entropy question, so I won't "got there" (we always agree).
The ID answer, and IMHO the dishonest answer, is: "It must be an intelligent designer."
I would still call them "single issue voters" because they evidently put most of their eggs in the pro/con evolution basket. To me it's about the same "scaling" as an feminist voter, pro-lifer, environmentalist, etc.
It seems everyone's got their buttons - but when taxes and spending are on the line those buttons can get mighty pricey. And when it's national security, the cost can be unbearable.
The Euclidean algorithm (for the few systems wherein it exists) is way too narrow an example. It only applies to finding a greatest common divisor of a pair of integers. It doesn't even work in many numerical systems.
There are random algorithms for arithmetic problems, though. The Miller-Rabin primality check or Dixon's factoring algorithm are examples. Random algorithms are often much faster than deterministic algorithms for the same problem. Dixon's factoring algorithm was the first sub-exponential algorithm to factor large integers.
It's not about evolution per se. It's the attack on all science being mounted by the conservatives (and their post-modernist and new-age allies) that people find a problem. It leads to a complete distrust of those in the GOP. Just like one couldn't trust Clinton (because of his habitual lying), many cannot trust the Republicans because they get science wrong. Thus many feel that the GOP cannot be trusted in things dealing with medicine, weather, technology, etc.
Scientists are not a large group. Perhaps the GOP feels as Jean-Paul Marat did when he said, «La République n'a aucun besoin des scientifiques»
Note that there are many people who distrust the GOP to make intelligent decisions on national security. With the anti-science bias shown by much of the GOP, they particularly don't trust the anti-missle system.
What are these nefarious tactics?
Patrick Henry would not have approved of you defiling his good name.
Actually Alamo-Girl, you answered your own question. Quite nicely, IMHO. I may bookmark this and use your response in my own arguments (grin).
I have no problem with speculation. Indeed, you have pointed out that other scientists do this. However, I do have a problem with the statement that the cause must be by Intelligent Design. That is not speculation. It is particularly improper, IMHO, when we still cannot assert that the natural selection process is insufficient. The fact that we cannot prove that it is sufficient does not prove that it is not sufficient. We cannot prove either way.
I actually like your suggestion:
it was caused by some designer, like aliens or collective consciousness or God, or possibly natural selection is sufficient.
This approach would at least acknowledge that natural selection may be sufficient and it would also put ID on the same level as Aliens, collective consiousness and everything else.
Wrong.
The homeschool community here in Orlando and Tampa is working to upper middle class. I only know two families that earn more than 200,000/yr.
Also, There are some immigrant families, especially Asians homeschooling.
So, if a Christian can believe something, it is a religious, not scientific concept?
What you're saying is that it's the duty of the state-funded schools to teach anti-religious ideas as fact.
I read about a case, in Louisiana I think, where a school board overrule a decision to simply put the stick "Evolution is a theory still debated by scientists" or something like that on the evolution section of science texts.
Yeah, the inventor of the MRI, Faraday, and dozens of other inventors and scientist and equivalent to astrologers because they don't believe in evolution.
Indeed, there are a number of types of algorithms. But if you refer back to Rocha's work on the subject of abiogenesis, you'll notice the algorithm required to give rise to self-organizing complexity in biological systems will include symbols, states (or processes), recursives, decisions - all of which are part of the Euclid algorithm. Therefore, I shall stick with Euclid's algorithm as my baseline.
Concerning your associates' attitude about the GOP and missile defense - they ought to do some research before leaping to a conclusion. Missile Defense happens to be the subject of the one and only book I've ever written - and virtually all innovation was on the GOP's initiative. And, BTW, the ancient Reagan era brilliant pebbles is still the most cost effective solution (at least IMHO)...
Perhaps your associates are more biased than they think they are...
But, er, I don't recall ever reading the Intelligent Design position as being other than a speculation based on a critique of evolution theory. The ID position says (roughly paraphrased) that evolution does not explain [pick one] phenomenon, that a better explanation is that it was designed by some intelligent agent.
Fair enough, Alamo-Girl. I overstated.
I still have a problem with ID in that they assert, positively, that natural selection does not (fully) explain evolution. We don't know that. Either way.
However, ID should not be on the same level as natural selection because we do know, positively, that natural selection is at least a contributing process. We have observed that on short timescales directly. We do not know whether ID ( or Aliens, etc.) is a contributing factor.
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