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.
You can easily think of situations where you wouldn't want your side to participate. Here's an example: Suppose Senators Schumer, Clinton, Feinstein, Kennedy, etc. announced a town hall meeting to discuss if the right to keep and bear arms is a good idea. The program is arranged to have seven participants -- six of whom are flaming dems, and there's a 7th seat for one token conservative. The moderator will be Michael Moore, and the audience will be from the campus of UC Berkeley.
That's the setup. They offer you the opportunity to present your side as the 7th panel member. Would you accept?
My two cents...
How they see themselves matters to no one but themselves, and whomever else they might have the power to inflict themselves upon. What matters is what they are, and they are hardly fact finders. If they want to find facts, the facts are readily accessible to them across a vast array of hundreds of thousands of sources. What they are is ideologues, to whom the facts do not matter. And there is no case contrary to such ideology that they will find adequate, and therefore no reason to carry on a charade of presenting one for their benefit - since they will not benefit. For the benefit of others, there are innumerable legitimate venues within which to present the case.
Indeed, you can surmise a number of scenarios where one would refuse to attend a meeting. There is always a cost. The President, for instance, refused to appear before the NAACP. Nothing he said could have changed their minds, so there was a very marginal risk among the NAACP - but a greater risk to the black voters. The refusal to appear there was coupled with other appearances in the community.
OTOH, when it is a public debate - or publicly broadcast - the risk can be much higher. If a candidate refused to appear in a public debate before a biased moderator, a hostile audience - it would be taken as a default.
Appearances before Congress or special committees (e.g. the 911 commission) are of the same type - they are public and the ones grilling the witness may be biased, the audience hostile.
In the case at hand, this is a public hearing called by conservatives. They key word is public.
If Rice had refused to appear before the 911 commission it would have been taken as an admission of some vague guilt.
Not at all. Scientists simply do not find creationism worthy of debate. By attending, they would be supporting the idea that creationism is "debatable" and thus a legitimate alternative theory. No reputable scientists supports creationism.
It would as if respected historians attended a debate with Holocaust deniers or geologists debated with people who believe the earth is flat. By debating with these people, one gives their ideas a legitimacy that they do not deserve.
Don't worry, evolution will be manifest at the public hearings whether anyone acknowledges it or not.
That's the tragedy. The anti-science faction is being called "conservative." It's the very thing I've been ranting about on this website for years. This can destroy the growing Republican majority in this country, by making them appear to be a pack of idiots (as perhaps they are in Kansas).
As for a "public" debate, that's not how science is conducted. We don't vote on gravity, or on the value of pi. And we don't vote on whether evolution happened either. If Kansas wants to teach creationism, or flat earth, or any other silly thing, that's their business.
If the creationists have their "debate" all by themselves, with no one else present, it will have no more scientific importance than a convention of astrologers. Unfortunately, it may affect the quality of education in Kansas. Too bad. It's their state. Their choice.
The rest of your post is a reflection of your attitude towards those of us who strongly disagree with the happenstance pillar of evolution theory. Intelligent Design proponents do not reject evolution per se but suggest that happenstance cannot explain what is observed, that an intelligent designer is a better explanation.
BTW, there is a growing tide among mathematicians and scientists who do not embrace Intelligent Design speculation of a designer - but also doubt the happenstance pillar of evolution theory (self-organizing complexity, master control genes, information theory and molecular biology, etc.)
These concepts cut both ways - but if the anti-ID crowd doesn't present them, then any mention of them will obviously favor Intelligent Design.
I do not however believe that the Intelligent Design debate will become part of state and national politics unless the parties or candidates pick it up - despite all the MSM attempts to make it so.
And I also agree that science is not a negotiation - but that is not the object here, the object is what to teach the children. And on that point, the public is more evenly divided.
IOW, if large segments of the public reject happenstance in evolution theory then science has failed to make that point. Or perhaps that point cannot be made because it is false or ideological, which is my view on the matter.
Unfortunately, the creationoids will declare victory and call real scientists cowards for avoiding a rigged debate.
I know we've discussed this before. Natural selection isn't really "happenstance." It is, however, natural. There are very real factors in play, and the results of the selection process are entirely comprehensible. The only part of evolution that appears to be happenstance is the unpredictable nature of mutations. As you and I have discussed, such matters are determined at the molecular level by the laws of physics and chemistry, but the variables are so many that we can't predict them.
Evolution appears to be natural and unplanned, but that's not at all the same thing as "happenstance." To toss the word "happenstance" into the discussion, with all the negative connotations it carries, is far more confusing than enlightening.
Yes, but who cares if they declare victory? They're always declaring victory. Fools come into these threads all the time and declare that evolution is finished, it's disproved, the game is over, etc. All the time!
Nevertheless, the biotech industry hires no creationists, the creationist websites have no scientific discoveries of their own to report (other than occasional sightings of the wreck of Noah's Ark) and the scientific world goes on, ignoring creationism.
The only losers will be the kids in Kansas. But that seems to be foreordained.
If an algorithm lies at the root of biological life (state changes, Rocha - self organizing complexity, von Neumann) - then the outcome is planned, directed, not happenstance.
If master control genes are largely immutable causing eyeness to evolve simultaneously across phyla between vertebrates and invertebrates (Gehring) - then the outcome is planned, directed, not happenstance.
When an Intelligent Design proponent looks at these things, Occam's Razor is that an intelligent designer must have been involved.
When a creationist looks at these things, the response is "God did it!"
When a metaphysical naturalist looks at these things, the response is "Nature did it!"
The contention is basically between the ideology/theology of creationists and metaphysical naturalists (atheists, agnostics).
Strangely, the ID proponents don't specify who the designer is (God, aliens, collective consciousness) and are therefore the more neutral of the three - but are presumed to be creationist.
BTW, there is a growing tide among mathematicians and scientists who do not embrace Intelligent Design speculation of a designer - but also doubt the happenstance pillar of evolution theory...
LOL! That sounds so grand. You should look up the difference between a tide and a ripple. ;^)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.